OffBroadway Blues
by LostOzian
Summary: Maureen cons the gang into helping her put on the musical Wicked, but can the Bohos pull off the other side of the Wizard of Oz? Canon pairings only. Everything else is for kicks.
1. Insane Games of Orbit

**Disclaimer: RENT is not mine, though this is my first RENT fic! I have employed TIME WARP TECHNOLOGY, too! -squeals- Okay, it's after New Year's, but they have the loft with all its stuff. Mimi and Roger are as happy together as kids with candy. It's 1989 and 2005-6 at the same time. Yeah, I think that's it. Time warps end! -LostOzian**

* * *

**Did you actually read all that? If you didn't, you should, or else you will flame me senselessly. I know how the show goes. -LostOzian**

* * *

Maureen poked her head around Mark and Roger's loft door cartoon-style, pulled it out, and stuck it in again, looking downright silly.

"What's up, Maureen?" Collins asked, sitting on the couch with Angel in his lap. Roger and Mimi were in the kitchen, alternately assembling something to resemble dinner and making out, and Mark was in his room, stressing about something. Joanne was at a court case, and nobody cared where the hell Benny was anymore, because he was a jerk now. Maureen stepped into the loft, hiding something behind her back.

"It's January," she said. "Cold, dreary January with nothing to do and not a single greeting-card holiday until Valentine's Day. Until then, I have the perfect project to keep us entertained," Maureen produced a very thick stack of paper from behind her back.

"We'll put on Wicked!" she said excitedly. "That musical with the Wicked Witch of the West!" All activity stopped as they turned to look at Maureen. She continued babbling on regardless.

"I've already thought about casting, and I'm sure we can pull it off with seven people. And I've got the sheet music and libretto copies for us to rehearse with!" Angel stood, leaving a lonely Collins on the couch, and took the stack of paper from Maureen.

"Chica, where'd you get all this?" she said. Maureen smiled smugly.

"Found it on the internet," she said. "At a free public library, and then I stole Joanne's floppy disk to copy it over and get it printed at her office!" She clapped her hands together. "But don't tell her the part about stealing the disk." Angel started flipping through the script, getting the general gist of the show.

"We'll be just like an acting troupe; minimal costumes and set, focusing on our talents as performers." Maureen smiled winningly, trying to con her fellow bohemians. "Jo's already in," she said convincingly. The two happy couples of RENT looked at their significant other, trying to decide if they should play along with the resident diva.

"I _did_ check my sock drawer, and my you hid my scarf, Roger-" Mark said as he entered the room, before noticing Maureen. He swallowed; trying to make sure he didn't say 'hi' and make a fool of himself. Maureen practically jumped on him, taking his hands and spinning him around in an insane game of Orbit.

"Mark! I got an illegal copy of the script to Wicked, and I was wondering if you would want to sing and dance and act and be the all-around the nice guy you are!" Maureen stopped spinning, but Mark continued to trip over his feet in tiny circles. His glasses were askew, and Collins would have sworn his eyes were rolling in different directions.

"Uh…only if I get a sneaker," he said confusedly. Roger buried his face in Mimi's shoulder to keep from openly laughing at Mark. Maureen turned on the rest of them, not happy that she only had two out of six signed on.

"Please?" she begged. "Please? Please? Please? Please? Please? Plea-"

"Chica, if you stop begging, I'll do it," Angel said. Collins nodded, face lighting up as Angel returned to her seat in his lap.

"If Ang's in, I'm in," he said. Maureen turned to Mimi and Roger.

"Mimi? We need the dancing queen…" she said. Mimi looked up at Roger.

"Could be fun," she said. Roger raised his eyebrows. "Let's do it, Rog." Finally, Roger shrugged, the sign he was in. Maureen squealed in excitement.

"My God, you guys, this is going to be so much fun!" she said. "As soon as Joanne gets here, we'll start the first read through."

"You called, Mo?" Joanne said, pulling the loft door which Maureen had neglected to close open wider. Maureen squealed, running up to her girlfriend and giving her a hug and a kiss.

"Pooky! Perfect timing!" Maureen said, starting to hand out the scripts. Joanne just nodded, smiling slightly. Mark did a double-take, from the diva to the lawyer, before approaching Joanne.

"How did she get you to agree?" Mark asked. Joanne kind of bit her lip.

"It was really sudden," she said. "Maureen started spinning me around and babbling, and it sounded like some sort of question, so I said yes." Mark nodded. They were both dancing her tango. Again.

"Come on," he said. "Let's go get our brains tortured."


	2. I'm Playing Who To Your What?

**Disclaimer: RENT is not mine. Maureen and I fought over the rights to Wicked, but we both lost. That belongs to Gregory Maguire. If anyone disagrees with the casting, take it up with Mo. But she won't change it. :) Neither will I. Hope you like this chapter, lots of people gave enthusiastic reviews! -LostOzian**

* * *

Maureen scanned her friends over steeped fingers, Mimi and Angel in Roger and Collins' laps respectively. Joanne and Mark were sitting in single seats, with Maureen on the 'coffee table'. Everybody clutched their scripts, waiting for Maureen to tell them which part to read. With seven people, auditions were kind of pointless, especially with four female parts in the whole show and four (ish) females exactly.

"Okay," Maureen said at last. "I've thought this over for a long time, so work with me. I'm pretty sure these are the best matches." Maureen pointed to Roger with one hand.

"Roger, read Fiyero," Maureen crossed over her first hand to point to Mimi. "Mimi, read Nessarose…" Roger and Mimi immediately dived into the script to try and find out who these people were. "Then Mark, do Boq, Pookie, (**Happy now, Pixie?**) do Glinda…" Maureen paused, looking at Collins and Angel.

"Actually, you two have three parts," she said. The gays raised their left eyebrows. "Morrible, Wizard, and Dillamond. That works because they're never all three on stage at the same time." Collins shrugged.

"If it works, then…" he said ambiguously.

"And everybody plays in the chorus depending on who's onstage or about to enter." Maureen said.

"Wait, Maureen," Joanne said, having politely waited for her turn to speak. "Glinda's blonde." Maureen rolled her eyes.

"Work with me, Pookie!" she said. "You're the only one who can do the high soprano!"

"Wait," Roger said, looking down at the script. "Who's 'Elphaba'?" Maureen crossed her legs in a business-like manner.

"Well, I'm the only one without a part…" she said as if it wasn't her idea.

"You're going to direct _and_ play the lead?" Mimi said. Maureen did puppy-dog eyes.

"Oh, come on! This isn't about me this time!" Joanne rolled her eyes. "It's not!" Maureen insisted. "Pookie's the only one who can do Glinda, Mimi's the only one young-looking enough to do Nessa, Angel and Collins _together_ are the only ones who could pull off three parts…" Maureen held her hands out in a shrugging way. "What am I supposed to do? And I can belt," she added, just to prove her point.

"I can belt," Mimi said.

"But you need to do Nessa," Maureen implored. "Please, Mimi?" The dancer looked down at the script, wondering if it was really in her best interest to play a cripple. Maureen held her arms open for a hug.

"C'mon, Mimi! Be my sister!" Maureen said. "I'll let you do choreography!" Mimi was about to give in and hug when she noticed a glare that would have made Death cower in the corner from Joanne. Mimi decided against sisterly hugging, and merely smiled at the drama queen, snuggling deeper into Roger.

"I'll do Nessa. Let's just read through," she said.

"Let's," Mark said, as the group flipped to page one.

* * *

Things were going relatively well. They only stopped to distribute the small solos in the opening number and a few bit parts (Melena: Mimi. Frex: Roger. Midwife: Angel. Mysterious lover: Collins.) The dialogue in Dear Old Shiz was a bit choppy, but it worked as people passed around highlighters to mark these extra lines being given. Apparently Elphaba and Glinda had too many entrances and couldn't fill in the 'normal' people, despite many attempts to force Maureen into the chorus line.

They were in the middle of the Dancing Through Life scene, and it was Boq's line.

"Miss Galinda? I…" Mark stopped suddenly, starting to snigger.

"What?" Maureen said. "Go on!" Mark caught Joanne's eye, finishing his line.

"I hope you'll save at least one dance for me," he said seriously. Joanne seemed to start laughing, too, as much as Joanne usually laughed.

"Wha-a-a-a-a-at?!" Maureen whined, bouncing up and down like a small child. Mark recovered first.

"Nothing," he said. "Ah…inside joke," Maureen brightened, thinking that if her ex-boyfriend had an inside joke with her new girlfriend it meant that everything was perfect and happy and nobody had any resentment.

"Um, I don't mean to interrupt the inside joking," Roger said. "But later in the show, Maureen and I… shake things up."

Silence. The bohemians looked from Roger, to Maureen, then back to Roger, before flipping pages rapidly to find the dreaded scene.

"You're exaggerating, Roger," Maureen said dismissively, having already read the scene. "Nothing actually happens; you could just _choose_ to interpret it that way, which we-"

"We are cutting this scene," Joanne declared. Mimi nodded ferociously.

"Aw, come on!" Maureen said. "Elphaba and Fiyero's relationship is crucial to the plot!"

"Is that why you chose this show?" Mimi said, resembling a mad cat. "So you could sing some sappy duet with Rog?"

"No!" Maureen said. "It's not like that! _NESSA,_" Maureen pointed to Mimi, stressing the character's name. "Is in love with _BOQ,_" Maureen pointed to Mark. "Who is in love with _GALINDA_," Joanne and Mark looked away. "who is in love with _FIYERO_," Roger coughed, noticing that the look Mimi was giving him was the same one he did whenever he met her at the CatScratch. "Who loves _ELPHABA_!" Maureen finished. "If we're going to go about this like mature actors, we'll just have to forget who we are and concentrate on who we're playing!"

"Y'know," Collins muttered to Angel. "I'm beginning to feel glad we didn't get cast as main canon."

"Me, too," Angel said, giggling. "Though I do think Morrible and the Wizard make a nice little side-couple, don't you?" Collins laughed.

"You know I do," he said.

Maureen pouted angrily, having not heard Collins and Angel, and instead glaring at the unhappy leads. Those who had complained shifted uncomfortably.

"Now could we get on reading?" she said. "Next line!" Joanne looked down at her script, not used to Maureen taking charge.

"Oh, that's so kind, Bick," she recited.

"Boq," Mark said on cue.

"Thank you!" Maureen threw her arms up in the air, and the show continued.


	3. Convincing Heel Clicking

**Disclaimer: RENT, Wicked, not mine. Sheesh, do I own anything? Well, my ideas, maybe, but nothing else. I hate borrowing things... and renting them... RENT! Wait, no! Bad ADHD! Well, random chapter, but the cast's too tiny. So, story time... -LostOzian**

* * *

"This isn't going to work," Collins said apologetically. Angel nodded in sad agreement.

"What? Why not?" Maureen looked devastated. Collins grimaced.

"It's so confusing," he said. "I start out as Dillamond, to Ang's Morrible, then I'm the Wizard, and she's Dillamond, and then seconds later, she's Morrible." Collins looked up. "It makes no sense."

"It'll make sense! We'll use _hats_," Maureen mimed putting on and taking off a hat.

"Things are already so complicated," Roger said. "Look at Mimi! She's Nessa, Nessa and Elphaba's _mother,_ a townsperson, and that first flying monkey, Christine!"

"Chistery," Mark corrected, forever the nerd. Roger spared him a give-me-a-break look before continuing.

"And I'm Elphaba's father, then her…" Roger gritted his teeth. "Lover." Maureen sighed, staring at the loft floor in thought.

"Now, that can't be helped," she said. "But I have an idea on how to solve Angel and Collins' problem." Everybody started at her intently. She looked up, serious for once.

"But you're not going to like it."

* * *

"You want me to do _what_, again?" Benny said over the phone. The seven bohemians had squeezed themselves around the earphone of Mark and Roger's old phone. 

"Oh, come on, Benny!" Maureen pleaded. "Last I remember, you had a nice alto!" Benny sighed, a crackle of air over the aged speaker.

"That's not a compliment to a guy," he said. "And I don't consider myself an alto."

"I can't believe we're wasting rehearsal time on _him_," Mark muttered.

"Well, we need an alto. That means you are a uniquely talented individual with a glimmering opportunity presenting itself to you at long last." Collins poked Maureen.

"We haven't even told him which part he'd have," he said. "Don't lie."

"That's it," Mimi said. Everybody looked to her. "Lies."

"That's all nice and pretty, Maureen, but…" Benny's voice died out as Mimi took the phone and put it to her ear.

"Benny? Hi, it's Mimi," she said, startling her friends. No longer able to hear both sides of the conversation, the Bohemians hoped Mimi would repeat enough of Benny's sentences to they knew what he was saying.

"I'm doing great. Even better since Maureen started this show," Everybody but Maureen gave her a quizzical look. Mimi held up two fingers and crossed them. "Y'know, ever since the beginning I'd wished you could be doing this with us." The Bohemians started sniggering, understanding what Mimi was up to. "Of course," Mimi continued. She uncrossed her fingers as she continued speaking.

"Maureen's not lying," she said. "It's like the part was written for your personality, too." With this, even Roger smirked slightly.

"How fast can you come by Mark and Roger's loft? That's our rehearsal sp- Oh, now? No, now's fantastic." Mimi smiled broadly, eyes lighting up mischievously. "Wonderful. Kay, see you then, Benny! Bye!" Mimi hung up.

"He's coming," she said. "Though he might not be happy about what we're going to give him."

"We've got time to think of something," Maureen said, before she seemed to get and idea. "I got it!" However, Roger pulled Mimi aside.

"What was that?" he asked, serious but not quite accusing. Mimi matched his mood.

"I took a page out of Maureen's book," she said. "The way she gets Mark to do stuff."

"Please, don't ever do that again." Roger said, a question Mimi knew she couldn't refuse.

"I won't," she promised.

* * *

Benny showed up a half hour later, all dressed up with a collared shirt, his trademark sweater-vest, and dress slacks. 

"What do you think you're doing, Benny? Meeting your father-in-law?" Mark asked cynically.

"If I'm just going to be insulted, I'm going to leave." Benny said. "What's the show, and what's this God-send part?" Maureen held out Benny's copy of the script.

"The Wizard, in the musical Wicked," Maureen said proudly. Benny stared at her.

"Oh no," Benny said, turning around and starting to pace slightly. "I thought you were giving me a good part, and what do you give me? The villain, all because of the protest-fiasco!"

"Wait, you know Wicked?" Collins asked.

"Allison and I saw it a year ago," Benny said. "With the original Broadway cast."

"Damn…" Collins said, halfway between amazed and disgusted.

"Benny! He's an alto!" Maureen said. Benny drew breath to protest. "Okay, alto-tenor! The point is, we're short on people and we need you!"

"What, seven people and you can't pull something together?" Benny said. "I find that hard to believe."

Suddenly, Maureen stood straight at attention like the people on the 'join the army' commercials.

"Sound off!" she called like a drill sergeant. "Elphaba!" She clicked her heels three times.

"Glinda!" Joanne called, clicking her heels.

"Witch's mother, Nessa, Townsperson, Flying Monkey!" Mimi said in the same tone, clicking three times at the end of her list.

"Witch's father, student, Fiyero, townsperson, guard, Wizomania Chorus!" Roger rattled off, clicking. Benny backed up slightly, getting creeped out by the militaristic reform of Maureen's off-Broadway boot camp.

"Townsperson, Boq, guard, flying monkey!" Mark said next. Click. Click. Click.

"Madame Morrible, townsperson, student, guard, flying monkey, Dorothy!" Angel said with a loud platform-heels clicks.

"Dr. Dillamond, townsperson, guard, flying monkey, student, Wizomania chorus!" Collins finished with three decisive clicks. Benny was flat against the wall now, the seven's eyes boring into his willpower.

"W…Wizard?" he stammered, trying to make them stop. They continued to stare at him for agonizingly long seconds until Benny clicked his heels nervously.

And everybody burst out laughing.

"God, you should have seen your face when you clicked your heels," Mark said, shaking his head at Benny. "Priceless."

"I knew he would do it if we added the heel-clicks," Angel said, eyes tearing up with laughter.

"I never agreed to any of this yet," Benny said, trying to regain a scrap of dignity. Maureen straightened, fixing him with her best you-know-I'm-right look.

"Yes, you did," she said. "When you clicked your heels. Hate to tell you, Dorothy, but there's no going home for you. You're on the other side of the rainbow now."

Benny tried to roll his eyes, but knew that he was stuck. If only he could actually melt Maureen in a bucket of water…


	4. Trashy Shows and the Props In Them

**Disclaimer: Sorry this took so long!!! I had three shots at the doctor's office on Tuesday (Three! It hurt to type!), hung out with GofG on Wednesday, and performed community service today. So I finally have an update. Filler/Benny torture. I hope you enjoy! -LostOzian**

* * *

"How did the searching go?" Mark asked as the various 'Recovery' teams returned; Joanne with Maureen, Roger with Mimi, Collins with Angel, and poor Mark stuck with the reluctant Benny. They had been first to return- resident yuppie scum getting uncomfortable in alleyways full of 'influenza hotels'- toting bags of trash which served as treasure to their little operation: A skeleton of an umbrella, a burlap potato sack only eaten through in one corner, a nd wadded-up balls of cellophane (**Plastic wrap. But cellophane sounds cooler.**) were Mark and Benny's discoveries.

"Pretty good," Collins said, he and Angel first to return after Mark and Benny. The professor dumped his finds on the ever-useful Magical Metal Table of Saving Lives. "Chicken wire, no idea what that's doing in the city, old PDC piping for monkey wings, and old hand towels." Collins hefted a sample. Benny visibly cringed.

"What'cha got, Angel?" Mark asked, ignoring Benny's reaction to the dilapidated dishrag.

"Like, five copies of 'Where the Lilies Bloom' by Vera and Bill Cleaver," Angel stacked the old hardcover books, flipping through the pages of one copy. "I think this one's burned."

"That's easy to explain," Benny said, discretely scooting away from the dishtowels. "Required reading to some school or another. Some of those books are torture to read." Angel raised her eyebrows, a quick up-down, before moving on.

"Tinfoil, most of it still smelling like spaghetti bolognese," she said (Benny avoided those, too). "A shower curtain complete with rod, and a bent _broomstick,_" Angel held up a sorry-looking excuse for a housecleaning tool- the thing's green metal handle was bent at an odd angle, half of its plastic green-and-white bristles missing.

"Well, better than nothing," Mark said, wondering how they were going to fix such a depressed-looking sweeper. "It reminds me of Roger a month into withdraw."

"You make one more reference to that time of my life, and these are going in a trash truck," Roger said, bumping the loft door open and hefting an old cardboard box.

"Green fabric galore," Mimi announced. "And two green beer bottles for the green elixir." Mark clapped both of them on the back, taking some samples and measuring them against Angel. Benny was fully wedged into a corner by now, eyeing the odious rags fearfully.

Maureen and Joanne returned at last.

"We found red shoes," Joanne produced an abused pair of red Converse high-tops. "Just pretend they're slippers."

"And there was this... this stoop-sale!" Maureen said proudly. "We got two toy swords and a fake pistol, and the most perfect witch hat you will ever see!" Maureen glanced at Benny. "Off of Broadway," she added, lip turning slightly, but she recovered.

"It cost two dollars," she continued sadly, as if she was talking about a lot more. "But I'm skipping dinner to make up for the cost!"

The Bohemians slowly applauded, truly awed by Maureen's sacrifice.

"You're pathetic, you know that," Benny said, starting to come out from his corner a little bit.

"Shut up or you'll be a monkey the entire show," Maureen said. "It's a big deal, volunteering to miss a meal in this life." Benny returned to staring at the rags, trying to find the nerve to get close to them.

"Those things are filthy," he said, hoping someone else would notice and take action. Roger rolled his eyes.

"Well, excuse us, princess, if we decided to scrounge the old rather than shoplifting the new," he said sarcastically. Benny took a deep breath, and picked up what had been a dark green t-shirt in a previous life.

"Are these going to get…washed?" Benny asked, trying to conquer this somewhat newfound phobia. Joanne shrugged.

"Well, Maureen's yard sale finds ate up just about the entire budget," she said. "We might encounter a few quarters between now and dress rehearsal so we can get them cleaned at a Laundromat, but that might be a few weeks."

"And… where are these staying until then?" Benny asked.

"Around the loft," Mark said causally. "We might make measurements and such, though with the odd sizes it's going to be hard."

"We could just lay them on the actors," Angel said, taking an old towel and laying it across Collins' shoulders, getting an idea for how big it was. "Like this."

"Before they're washed?" Benny said. Joanne sighed.

"We've been over this, Benny," the lawyer said. "They'll be washed before opening night, but probably not until then."

Benny just stood there for a minute, dumbstruck.

"So none of you are going to wash them?" he said. Everybody exchanged glances, one thought running through their minds: _stupid yuppie scum._

"Not enough time," Collins said.

"Or money," Joanne added.

"Or detergent," Mimi piped up.

"Or-" Roger was about to add 'human interest', but Benny cut him off.

"I get it!" he said. Silence for a moment as he took deep breaths. "I'll get them washed."

Several pairs of eyebrows went up. Benny continued.

"I'll get them washed, dried, with soap, and bring them back. You people can run other scenes I'm not in; Lion cub, Popular, Witch of the East, whatever. But I am not going to have these sit around for weeks smelling like Mark's scarf."

"Hey!" Mark interjected. "My scarf does_ not_ smell!"

"When was the last time you washed it?" Benny asked concernedly, trying to put the rags in a box so he wouldn't have to touch them.

"Um…recently…" Mark said ambiguously. Benny lowered one eyebrow, then left the loft with the filthy fabric.

"Were we really out of money?" Maureen said.

"Nope," Joanne said.

"Or time," Collins said.

"Or detergent," Mimi said.

"Or-" _human interest._

"I get it!" Maureen cut everybody off. "Then why did you tell him we were?"

"The yuppie scum is good for something," Angel said. "Especially when he's germ-o-phobic." Maureen smiled, finally understanding the 'master plan'.

"C'mon, Mimi-chica, let's get some of the foil and plastic cleaned up," Angel said, sorting out what they needed to wash and un-crumple.

"Pookie, let's run 'Popular'," Maureen said, dragging Joanne to a corner of the loft.

"Wizomania?" Roger looked at Collins, thinking about running what Mimi had of the dance number. They started dragging furniture aside to make room. Mark looked around sadly for someone to rehearse with.

"At least I have you, Mister Scarfie…" Mark muttered to his scarf, wrapping it tighter around his neck, and pulling out his camera to hopefully discretely film people doing more interesting stuff than he was.


	5. Please Trade With Me?

**Disclaimer: RENT is not mine. And neither is McDonald's. Or Wicked. I don't own anything good... Except my can of Amp. Amp is such a good energy drink, eight times the caffiene of coffee. Helped me finish Deathly Hallows in about thirteen hours. Then I slept for another twelve. Either way, here's the chapter! -LostOzian**

* * *

"So if we…" Maureen started standing up McDonald's toothpicks to represent her idea. "Made a paper-mache head, we could hang it on the frame and put a curtain behind it, and that's our Wizard head."

"How are we going to do a giant cage?" Mimi asked.

"We're going to have to pretend there's a cage using pantomime," Maureen explained. "It's called _establishing_," Maureen continued to rant off things they would need to establish when Mark pulled Roger aside.

"What's up?" Roger asked.

"Hi," Mark said. Roger raised one eyebrow.

"Hi," he said back, wondering what this was all about. Was Mark trying to get him in some awkward position, perfect for good film?

"So… uh… How are the 'As Long As You're Mine' rehearsals going?" Roger shrugged.

"Joanne and Mimi blocked the whole thing so they don't go crazy," he said.

"Well, about you and Mimi…"Mark said. "She might like it better if you…did Boq…" Roger looked at him strangely.

"You just want to do Fiyero so you can sing that song with Maureen," Roger said. Mark's face grew red, like mashed potatoes with ketchup in them. Unfortunately, Roger thought of the mashed potato analogy and had to struggle to keep from randomly laughing at Mark.

"Okay, you got me, but it might make Mimi feel better if you were playing in love with a lesbian as opposed to a bi," Mark tried to argue

"I _do_ play in love to Joanne either way," Roger said. "And I think she's already grossed out from me playing in love with her." Mark did puppy-dog eyes.

"Please, Rog?" Mark said. Roger stopped short.

"Don't call me Rog," he said seriously. "Mimi calls me Rog." Mark immediately looked horrified.

"Sorry," he said, choosing to stare at his shoes. Roger looked him over for a few seconds, thinking about the mashed potato analogy.

"Y'know what, I'll pitch it to Maureen," Roger said. "And call it my idea. But only if you stop begging." Mark looked up.

"Thanks, Roger," Mark said, smiling. He sat down again as Roger tapped Maureen on the shoulder.

"Could I talk to you?" he asked. Maureen nodded, joining him in the corner where Mark had begged to trade roles.

"Listen, I was thinking, and I realized Mark might do better as Fiyero," Roger said. Maureen smiled at him dubiously.

"You're kidding, right?" she said. Roger sighed. He hadn't expected Maureen to go for it, anyway.

"Well, I'm kidding about me doing the thinking," Roger said. "But I'm cool if Mark and I traded. I mean, Mimi's already up the wall about the whole Fiyero-Elphaba issue…"

"Look, Mark's a great guy," Maureen said. "But I'm trying to think of the show as a whole rather than what each of us wants to do. Personally, the big song would have the best chemistry if Collins and Angel sang it, but I wasn't able to cast it that way." Roger nodded in agreement. He noticed Maureen bite her lip as she proceeded with caution.

"Honestly, there were some obvious choices in casting, and you weren't one of them," she went on. "Joanne for Glinda, because of the vocals, but then I cast Mark as Boq because they click. They're a lot alike when you think about it. I wouldn't dream of changing it." Roger nodded again. He should have known Maureen had her own reasons for casting things the way she did, even if there was the possibility she got Elphaba of her own accord.

"I'd say Mark and Joanne like the Dancing Through Life scene, at least," Roger said.

"I still don't get why they crack up at that 'save one dance for me' line! Maureen started to whine a little bit. "Do you?"

"Don't I wish?" Roger snorted. "Maybe they're high or something."

"Pookie, high? _Mark, _high?" she said, pushing the point they were the two people least likely to get high, omitting Yuppie Scum, who had apparently never been truly drunk before.

"Hey, Maureen," Angel called. "How are we going to do the big Wizard voice?"

"I was thinking we use the cool echo-mike from the protest, the vocorder-thingie," Maureen responded. Mark and Joanne immediately started laughing. Maureen folded her arms impatiently and turned back to Roger.

"Okay, somehow I'm always dating some sort of geeky freak," Maureen said. "Why?" Roger shrugged, thinking of how his girlfriend was practically a stripper.

"No idea," he said.

Needless to say, geeky Mark would still be stuck with.Boq.


	6. Rolly Office Chairs and RC Cars

**Disclaimer: Shorter chapter for such a long gap. Grr. But Nessa's chair, the Wizard head, and the cage are some of the major things that kills a low-bugdet production. And I can't keep away from writing Benny and Mark. Yeah. And I own nothing. Not Wicked, not RENT, not rolly office chairs. -LostOzian**

* * *

"This is bordering on ridiculous," Benny said as the rest of the Bohos fussed with Mimi's chair.

"Bordering?" Mark muttered sarcastically. Everybody ignored him.

"Benny, go practice being an evil jerk," Maureen said. "Wait, no, you're good at that. Go glitter the ruby slippers." Benny scowled.

"They're just old Converse," he said, and, like Mark, he was ignored, so he left for the kitchen to start gluing sequins on the sneakers. The Bohemians parted, revealing Mimi in a cheap and salvaged rolling office chair.

"Looking good," Collins said.

"There's potential," Roger said. Mimi practiced her I'm-an-innocent-cripple-look-at-me look. Mark shook his head slowly.

"She has to use her legs to move it," he said. "It won't work."

"Mark!" Maureen pleaded. "Pretend with me!"

"No, the chair's okay, but Wicked Witch of the East makes no sense if Mimi can move the chair with her legs, and then 'gains' the ability to walk." Mark said.

"Well, how do you think we should fix it?" Maureen said.

"Remote control," Mark said. "Uptown houses throw out so many RC cars because they can't change the batteries. Get enough of those, and we'll have enough horsepower to move the chair." Everybody stared at him, mostly because he had applied the term 'horsepower' to remote control cars.

"_Somebody_ didn't get enough of toy cars as a child," Roger said.

"Remote control?" Angel asked seriously. Mark deflated.

"You're right, stupid idea," Mark admitted sadly. Everybody nodded.

"Wait," Joanne said. "I knew this girl in college; she became a mechanic around here. If we got a bicycle, she could take off the wheels and put them on the chair. She owes me one, too, so it'll be free."

"Pookie, that's a great idea!" Maureen squealed, glomping her girlfriend.

"You sure we can't trade parts?" Mark whispered to Roger.

"Maureen has her reasons," Roger said back.

"Wait," Collins said. "How are we going to get a bike?"

Slowly, everybody turned to look at Mark.

"What?" Mark said, clueless.

"You know we'll never ask for anything else…" Mimi rolled back and forth in the chair because it was fun. Finally, Mark got it.

"No!" he said loudly. "No! My bike is _mine!_" Everybody stared at him with puppy-dog eyes, including Benny from the kitchen, but nobody was paying attention to him.

"No!" Mark said again. "There are three things I care about in life: my camera, my bike, and my scarf!"

"So that's why you never get laid…" Roger commented, _almost_ without realizing it Mark counted to ten.

"There are three _material_ things I care about," he corrected. "And my bike is one of them!"

"Mark, you're the one who thought Mimi shouldn't use her legs in the chair!" Collins said. Mark struggled to find a loophole in this logic. He wanted to keep his bike!

"Y'know, you can get a bike on eBay for fifteen bucks," Benny supplied. Everybody rounded on him.

"Do you know how many missed meals that is?" Maureen said. "We happen to _like_ eating twice a day."

"Well, Mimi needs a chair that rolls," Benny said. "So I'll get the bike."

"We don't need your charity, you yuppie-" Roger was about to insult Benny when he was cut off.

"If you don't want it, I'll get the bike now and then we can go and sing the score in the subway for change. 'Dear Old Shiz' would be a hit because of the harmonies."

"That was actually a good idea," Angel said, because it was true. Benny just nodded.

"Sure, because we all have fifteen bucks lying around…" Collins said. Benny decided to take the compliment from Angel and just go.


	7. Sing It With Me, Hon!

**Disclaimer: Warning! Romantic pairing! MO/JO! But I think it's fun... Oh well. RENT is not mine, Wicked is not mine... Because Holtzman and Schwarts (and Maguire's) lawyers would be after me. Like they would the Bohos. **

* * *

"So we have Mimi's chair, the Wizard head, his mike," Joanne permitted herself a smile, before continuing. "The bubble-wand-umbrella thing, tiara, tin man suit-"

"Why are you always listing things?" Maureen said complainingly. She was sitting in their armchair, upside down, so that her hair hung down to the floor and her legs stuck up in the air as she chewed a large wad of bubble gum. Joanne was sitting at the table, cross-referencing lists of things they needed, things they had, and things they had that they could use to make things they needed. "It's not like they'll go away if you don't _list_ them."

"The slippers are sparkled, we've got the straw mask and cuffs, the broom's as un-bent as it's going to get…" Joanne continued, ignoring Maureen. And frankly, Maureen didn't like being ignored.

"That's why I never liked cleaning," Maureen raised her voice the tiniest bit. "I mean, I know I have socks. Does it matter if they're all in the same place?"

"Guard and citizen jackets are done, and Benny's bringing his Wizard coat, Father's hat, Mother's hairnet, Mark's scarf for Boq…" Joanne was muttering to herself now. "No clue why he's so over possessive of it... hair clip, hand mirror, books…" Maureen started kicking her legs in the air, back and forth.

"Pookieeee! I'm bored!" Maureen twisted herself around until she was sitting upright. "How many people do you think are going to show up?" she asked excitedly. Joanne stopped listing, rubbing at her temples.

"Not many," she said. "This is an illegal performance. Too many and we'll be charged with copyright infringement."

"Oh, legal, illegal, laws, schmals!" Maureen jumped up from the chair, spreading her arms theatrically. "This is the theatre! This is art! And art knows no bounds or copyrights!"

"Try telling that to Holzman and Schwartz's lawyers," Joanne said. "And if they find us, they'll win." Maureen gasped audibly.

"Pookie, don't put yourself down like that!" Maureen approached Joanne from behind, draping her arms around her Pookie-bear's shoulders. "You're really good at what you do!" Joanne smirked again.

"It doesn't matter how good I am if the other guys are right." Joanne said. "We blatantly ignored copyright laws to put on a Broadway show literally a few streets over. There's no getting out of it."

"Pookie, you worry too much!" Maureen pretended to chastise, before leaning in close and saying in her baby voice, "Do I need to make Roger sing Dancing Through Life at you?" This time Joanne fully smiled.

"I still can't believe you managed to get the overemotional rocker to play the carefree 'scandalacious' prince." she said.

"Well, he was the only one of them flat-out hot enough to pull it off," Maureen said casually. Joanne whipped around.

"What did you just call him?" Maureen's eyes widened in innocence.

"What?" she said. Joanne stood, throwing off Maureen's arms as she began to pace.

"You just called Roger 'flat-out hot'!" Joanne accused, using her lawyer-powers of imposingness. Maureen held up her hands in surrender.

"Oh, come on!" she said. "There's more than one hot being on this planet, Pookie!"

"Though you don't _say_ there is!" Joanne felt about to cry. "The fact you think he's hot means you've been looking at him… like _that_!" Maureen took Joanne's hand, making her stay still.

"Joanne," she said, no hint of a joke in her eyes. "I would never dream of cheating with Roger Davis, no matter how hot he may be." Joanne just stood there, wanting to believe Maureen but not sure if she should. "Roger and I have known each other for a while, and if we were in love, we'd be together by now. But we're not. He's with Mimi," Maureen brought Joanne closer to her. "And I'm with you."

They stood there, Joanne shaking involuntarily, for a few seconds.

"Sing it with me," Joanne said at last. "Sing As Long As You're Mine." Maureen reached blindly for a tissue, never looking away from Joanne as she spit out the gum.

"Kiss me too fiercely," she began, gently starting to steer Joanne toward their bedroom. "Hold me too tight…"


	8. Dance Rehearsals From Hell

**Disclaimer: RENT is not mine. Raise your hand if you did not know that. Now, take a picture of you raising your hand and send it to me. If you did know that RENT isn't mine, don't bother and just read the story. The same goes for Wicked. Oz, I hope I don't get many pictures. If I do, I will lose faith in humanity. -LostOzian**

* * *

"Mimi, please, _please_ could we take five?" Mark begged, crashing into the loft wall for support, gasping for breath.

"No! You're still not moving the chair fast enough, and it's going to be even harder once I'm in it!" Mimi put her hands on her hips. Seeing as there could only be a max of eight people on stage at a time with everybody doing different things, there were no dance captains, so Mimi had insisted upon mass dance rehearsals until each and every one of them could do every part while sleeping off a hangover.

However, this was torture on poor Mark Cohen. He groaned loudly, leaving sweat streaks where his forehead made contact with the wall. Mimi looked over her human material again: Mark, Benny, Collins, Roger, and Joanne. Angel and Maureen made entrances later in the Dancing Through Life scene, and she was next to useless in the Nessa chair, which left her five dancers. _And it's not like they're top rate,_ Mimi thought, remembering her friends at the CatScratch, all of them 'professional', or at least really, really good.

"Roger, Joanne, good on your part…" Their dance looked like a tango, the 'I'll Cover You' dance, and a two-person mosh pit put together. It didn't really make sense, but looked cool, so it stayed in.

"Benny, Collins, I think five spins in those measures is too much," Mimi sang about eight bars of the song, giving them perspective of which part she was talking about. "Let's say four from now on." Rather than try to turn one of them into a girl the ten seconds they get off stage, they just had solo dances, trying to take up as much of the stage as possible.

"From the top, with the hat exit!" Mimi snapped for Maureen to take her place. Everybody obeyed, except Mark.

"Uh…" Mark said, now in a fetal position on the floor. Mimi looked at him, unimpressed.

"Fine. We'll run Wizomania again, and then go right back to this!" Roger and Collins bumped fists, preparing for their completely awesome dance, and executed it flawlessly. Benny considered saying something about how this was different from Broadway, but decided against it. They finished, and Mark was still on the floor.

"Seriously, guys, I feel sick," Mark groaned, seriously sounding like he felt sick. "Five more minutes…"

"All right, all right!" Mimi said shortly, wondering why Rogy-poo was friends with such a wimp. "Mo, Benny, run the Wonderful scene, up until the Monkeys!"

They did so, and everything was perfect. And Mark was still out of commission.

"Mark!" Roger shouted at him. "Get up!" Mark lifted his head, glaring at Roger with an emo expression.

"Lighten up, _Rog_," he said irritably. Mimi gasped.

"You did not just call Roger 'Rog'!" she screamed at him. Joanne started walking toward Mark, patting Mimi's arm along the way.

"I got him," she said. With a sense of purpose, she roughly pulled Mark to his feet, led him through a hasty tango, dipped him, and promptly dropped him. His head hit the floor with a dull thunk.

"Pookie!" Maureen cried. "That was _mean_!" Angel, having experience in doctoring injured men, gave him a quick once-over.

"Just knocked out," she reported.

"What did you knock Mark out for?" Collins asked. Joanne shrugged.

"It's okay, he'll get up," she said dismissively. Maureen looked caught between pouting and starting to cry. Because of the difficulty of deciding between the two, the resident diva settled for kneeling beside Mark's corpse-like body.

"Mark!" she said loudly. "Mark! Mark, wake up!" Mark's eyelids fluttered, then opened. "Oh, God, Mark! Are you okay?!" Mark smiled, sitting up by himself.

"Actually," he said. "I feel-"

"Yes, yes, get up, we're about to do the party scene in Dancing Through Life." Mark clapped his hands, rubbing them together.

"All right then," he said. "Let's go," Everybody exchanged glances for a moment, then got into places. Joanne caught Mimi for a second.

"Maybe this should be the first rehearsal with you in the chair," she suggested. Mimi raised her eyebrows.

"But Mark just got hit on the head," she said.

"Exactly," Joanne said. "Try it. Everything else is good, if it's not, we'll run it again." Mimi gave her another questioning look, before sitting down in the tricked-out office chair.

"Maureen, play the track," Mimi ordered. They made a few recordings of Roger's guitar for the melody line to rehearse with. "And five, six, seven, eight!"

The change was incredibly drastic. Mark had all of his cues, spins, and turns to a t, putting the other Bohemians on stage to shame.

"Okay, who are you, and what have you done with Mark Cohen?" Angel asked playfully, clapping him on the back in congratulations.

"It just… clicked," was all the explanation Mark could give.

"That's how you get something good out of Mark," Joanne said. "You have to knock him out first." Mark turned, strangely confused.

"What?" he asked, punctuating his confusion. Joanne rolled her eyes.

"When we patched?" Joanne said. "First, you…" Mark's expression changed as he remembered.

"Oh yeah!" he said, laughing slightly. "Wow…" He looked around at the cast, all staring at him like he had asked to actually audition for the Broadway staging of Wicked. However, they all had something very different in mind.

"I'll work hard!" Mark promised. "You won't have to do it opening night!"

"We'll probably do it anyway, just to be safe." Roger said. Mimi was slowly getting closer to the tape player.

"Well, now that Mark's in the zone, run No One Mourns the Wicked, in five, six-" she clicked the play button, scrambling to get into place like her friends were.

"-seven, eight!"


	9. Lessons Learned by the Wizard Wannabe

**Disclaimer: RENT is not mine. Wicked is not mine. Benny will probably never make it as a Wizard, on Broadway, but it's fun to pretend he could. Yeah, I'm focusing on just a few of the characters, but they're the funniest ones. Actually, this is a character development chapter in a humor fic. Live with me for two seconds, please. Story time! -LostOzian**

* * *

Benny unlocked the door to his apartment, in the middle of singing 'Wonderful'. He raised his voice a little bit, thinking he was alone.

"They call me wonderful!" he sang, a few steps below belting, but still pretty loud as he took off his coat. "So I am wonder-" He stopped mid-word as he noticed Alison standing in front of him, arms folded and smiling at him.

"Feeling rather 'Wicked', are we?" she asked. Benny set down his keys, returning her grin.

"As always," he said, giving her a hello kiss.

"Well, if you're done being a Wizard-wannabe, dinner's ready," Mrs. Coffin said. _Wannabe,_ Benny thought. _If only I could tell her…_ Only problem was, Alison would be the kind of person to call up the Gershwin and tell them about the illegal staging.

"Perfect timing, then," Benny said, following his wife into the kitchen. She had two plates all ready, baked chicken with mashed potatoes and asparagus. Benny dramatically made a face, sticking his tongue out at the greens.

"Still trying to make me eat my vegetables?" he teased. Alison smiled, setting forks, knives, and two wine glasses on the table.

"Well, since we're able to choose what we eat, I'd like to see us eat healthily." Benny thought of his lunch earlier with the gang. Collins had convinced them that they could find a vendor and order seven bags of roasted chestnuts, yet pass one off to the Squeegee Man on the corner so the vendor would miscount and give them another free. It had been strangely exciting, especially laughing about it after, letting Squeegee Man take pinches out of all their bags.

"What's so funny about a salt shaker?" Alison asked him. Benny looked up, realizing that he had been smiling while watching the salt shaker.

"Oh, nothing," he said. He started on the asparagus, wanting to finish the bitter vegetable before eating 'the good part'.

"You haven't been by the house lately," Benny looked up, the asparagus adding to the uncomfortable question. "Any particular reason?" God, he was going to have to lie to her.

"Some tenants have been finicky," Benny said, improvising. Alison also disapproved of his continued friendship with the Bohos; it had been one of the first things he had given up after moving out of the loft. "There are seven of them, and I think they're in league."

"What makes you think that?" Benny thought fast as he could.

"I've been asking for the rent for weeks," he said. "One on Monday, one Tuesday, you get it," Alison nodded because she got it. "Well, they all ask for a week from the day I ask for the rent. And a week goes by, and none of them have the rent." He could definitely have imagined his friends pulling something like that on him around the time of the rally; now, he wasn't so sure if they would. It had been a week since Roger made some reference to yuppie scum.

"Are they bohos?" Alison said, stirring her mashed potatoes.

"Yeah," Benny admitted. Alison started frosting her chicken with the potatoes.

"You should have evicted them by now," she said seriously. Benny raised his eyebrows.

"Well, they're not bad _people_, just-" Benny was about to defend the friends he was pretending were skipping on the rent.

"Not bad _people_? Benny-boo, they're cheating you!" Benny fought a grimace as Alison used his pet name. He stared down at his plate, spearing another piece of asparagus moodily.

"Benny," Alison said, her tone more gentle this time. She reached across the table for his hand. "I married you for more reasons than I could count. You're smart, practical, handsome… but another reason was to get you out of that Bohemia place." Benny looked up in surprise. _This _was something they had never discussed before.

"I didn't like seeing you in that drug-infested place riddled with homeless people." Benny set down his fork, thinking of Alison's attitudes. He had started thinking like she did, and he lost the best friends he could have asked for. Now, he had them back, and he couldn't look at his wife the same.

"You never truly lose what Bohemia teaches you," Benny said, wishing Alison would stop talking about the Bohos like they were trash. New memories- the dumpster diving for costumes and props, dance rehearsals, having Starbucks coffee cups thrown at them when they tried to sing 'Dear Old Shiz' and forcing them to use Roger's guitar and Angel's drumming for spare change- mingled with the old ones- finding the future Magical Metal Table of Saving Lives, nights out with Roger, April, Mark, and Maureen, and pretending to hit on the girls to annoy his roommates.

"You learn things about living that stay with you the rest of your life," Benny said. "It changes you."

"Benny," Alison said, bordering on begging. "You can forget all that. You don't have to live like that anymore."

"Sorry, Muffy," Benny said. (He was the _only _one allowed to call Alison 'Muffy') "It's just you don't easily forget the things it teaches you."

"Please… just try," Alison said. "I'd hate to see you become a bohemian again."

_Too late, _Benny thought. And, in a fit of recklessness, he ignored the rest of the vegetables and moved on to the potatoes. No day but today.


	10. Manipulative Little Actors

**Disclaimer: Uugh, long update wait and it's not even like I was too busy! I was just LAZY! And I'm sorry, I can't resist Tango/ALAYM jokes. They're so much fun. Well, I hope you like the story! -LostOzian**

* * *

"Roger, the As Long As You're Mine scene sucks," Maureen said. Everyone was at the loft, fine-tuning most of the props. Angel had accidentally tripped over the vocorder mike, and Benny, Collins and Mimi were attending to the Nicest Boho in Town while Joanne helped Mark wake up so he could fix it.

"Look, I'm giving a hundred ten percent to this show-" Roger was about to defend himself when Maureen waved her hand.

"No, it's not you, it's not us. _We're _perfect," Maureen said rather egotistically. "It's the blocking. We look like five year olds." Roger shrugged.

"What can we do?" Roger said. "Jo and Mimi would murder us if we changed it, and frankly, I like knowing that, at the end of a hard day, there's someone who's ready to just-"

"I didn't ask to be told what you and Mimi like to do once the sun's gone down!" Maureen snapped. "I'm sure you don't want to be told how Jo likes it, either," Roger shook his head.

"Yeah, I can do without knowing that," Roger admitted.

"So the trick is to get everyone else to change the blocking without making it look like it was our idea," Maureen said. "They haven't seen it." Maureen climbed up onto the Magical Metal Table of Saving Lives. "Follow my lead," she hissed at Roger, before clapping her hands for attention.

"Excuse me! Excuse me!" Maureen called. Everyone stopped what they were doing, and Roger (following Maureen's lead) got up on the table as well.

"Hi, sorry, this should only take a second," Maureen said. "I just want to say, Mimi's been doing a great job on the dancing, and everything's looking great, especially the As Long As You're Mine scene Pookie's been helping with!" She gave Mimi a rather genuine-looking smile. Roger finally understood what she was doing.

"Oh, they haven't seen it!" Roger said as if he just realized that. Maureen took his forced surprise and made it her own.

"That's right! Oh, you guys, it's amazing!" Maureen waved her hand in the air as if trying to slap at a fly, which apparently meant Roger had to get down. Once the rocker was on the floor, the drama queen held out her hand for Roger to help her down. _If this doesn't work, I'll get you for this, Mo,_ Roger thought.

"Mark, when you're done with the mike, could you hit the music?" Maureen said. Mark connected a few cables, then gave his little I'm-the-coolest-thing-since-the-concept-of-bread-and-I-know-it look.

"Sure," he said into the vocorder as a test. "_Sure, sure, sure, sure…_" Everyone cleared the stage for Roger and Maureen, and Mark hit the play button.

Maureen and Roger were kneeling at least eighteen inches apart, the only contact their hands on each other's shoulders. It would have looked like they were about to start wrestling if Maureen hadn't started singing.

"Kiss me too fiercely!" she sang brightly. "Hold me too tight!"

The song continued as, slowly, the Bohos all turned to look at Joanne and Mimi. As Maureen finished her verse, she and Roger stuck their heads forward for an awkward and completely fake kiss.

"Oy vey," Mark said, looking at Maureen and Roger like they were something horrible that deserved pity.

"Stop," Benny said, looking rather twitchy. "That's not how the song was meant to look." Mark stopped the music as Benny approached Maureen and Roger.

"I'm sorry, Benny, but this isn't Broadway," Mimi said as Benny started to mold Maureen and Roger into the classic pose.

"Well, that's how it looked on Broadway," Benny pointed back at Maureen and Roger, having finished. They were pressed against each other, backs bending out as they supported each other. The actors made a big show of not liking this new pose, faking discontent.

"Well, what we had before was what all parties involved are comfortable with!" Joanne argued.

"But it's crap!" Mark said to the shocked faces of the other Bohos. "It doesn't even fit with the lyrics! 'Kiss me too fiercely, hold me too tight'?"

"If Mark's fixing it, it means it _really_ sucked," Roger hissed to Maureen as the filmmaker ranted.

"What we just saw does not qualify as fierce kissing or tight holding! Or even mild kissing or loose holding!" Angel shook her head slowly, wrapping an arm around Mimi.

"Mimi-chica, I'm sorry, but they're right," she said sadly. "It doesn't look good,"

"Angel-cake, you're too nice," Collins said, yet in the same tone. "It's like, Thank Goodness, good," Collins counted off the pinkie on his left hand, folding it in. "Witch of the East, good," He counted off his ring finger (you get the picture). "Wonderful, good, Not That Girl reprise, which is just Joanne standing on stage singing for ten seconds, good. As Long As You're Mine..." Collins was left with just his thumb, which he turned upside down. "Not good."

"Let them sing it like they would sing it to each of you," Angel suggested. "That's how I get in character. I pretend the person I'm talking to is someone I would say that to,"

"And _please_ let Benny fix it," Mark said. "It's one of the few scenes we can make look like Broadway." Joanne and Mimi stared at Respective Love Interest on stage, wrestling with the pressure to change the scene.

"Fine!" Mimi said at last. "Whatever! Just... run the classroom scene!"

Everyone sprang into action to get into places, and didn't notice Maureen and Roger hi-five behind their backs, making a silent promise to 'reassure' their girlfriends of their love.


	11. Well, THAT was unexpected!

**Disclaimer: Oz I hope I don't get flamed... Wicked is not mine, and neither is RENT. AND WE'RE IN SPOILER TERRITORY NOW! I'M SORRY! -LostOzian**

* * *

The end of yet another perfect finale. Maureen and Roger had just run off stage, Joanne, Mark, Collins, Angel, Benny, and Mimi had just finished screaming the final 'WICKED!', and the recording came to a climactic end.

"You guys…" Maureen said slowly. "I think we're ready!"

Everyone cheered, thanking God that this crazy project of Maureen's was almost over.

"No, no, ready for dress rehearsal!" Maureen corrected. Enthusiasm dropped a few notches.

"Eh, but the end is in sight!" Collins added, and general morale improved.

Suddenly, someone knocked at the door. The Bohos all whipped around, eight lightning-speed head counts going on at once. To everyone's dismay, there were indeed eight little Bohos in the loft. The person outside knocked again.

"Um… I'll get it," Mark said, the only person in the room to move toward the door. He slid it open, and everyone had little heart attacks.

"What? What are you all looking at?" Elphaba of Wicked said, breaking into a smile.

"Oh my God!" Maureen squealed like the little fan girl she had the potential to become. "It's the Wicked canon!"

And she was right. Outside the door in the famous Act Two costumes was Elphaba, Glinda, Fiyero, Boq (but not a Tin Man) and Nessa (but with the Ruby Slippers, so she was walking).

"Mo!" Mark hissed urgently. "They might not know they're from a musical!"

"Oh, we know," Nessa said casually.

"We're not the actual people, we're just the aesthetic manifestations," Boq added.

"We're antiseptic what?!" Fiyero looked at Boq confusedly. Boq sighed.

"Just forget I said anything," he said dejectedly.

"Well, we were just about to run dress rehearsal," Angel said, the perfect hostess. Glinda nodded enthusiastically, blonde curls bobbing.

"That's why we're here!" Glinda said excitedly. "Wouldn't miss this for all Oz!" Maureen smiled, but noticed Joanne looked like she was going to be sick. She excused herself from the general babble of conversation to check on her.

"What's up, Pookie?" Maureen said. Joanne pointed discretely at Glinda, now admiring Angel's jacket.

"That," she said. "That's Glinda. I'm not that." Maureen wrapped her arm around Joanne's waist, surveying the Ozians as they interacted with the Bohos.

"It doesn't matter," Maureen said. "We're all imposters here. Look at Elphaba and me, Nessa and Mimi, Boq and… well, bad example." Both Boq and Mark were staying on the fringe of the conversation, looking over the 'new' people with the same wide-eyed raised-eyebrows look. "But I know you can do it!" Maureen turned Joanne to face her. "We can do it together." Joanne looked at the floor, shaking her head nervously.

"Kiss, Pookie," Maureen begged, giving puppy dog eyes. Joanne looked up, and for once, gave in. It was nice to have Maureen kiss you, even if she wanted to kiss almost everyone else.

"Now, let's kick ass," Maureen said, taking Joanne into the 'girl's dressing room', aka Roger's room. The boys were in Mark's room, though Angel the drag queen was with the girls. And nobody minded, because that's how cool Angel was. Either way, the separate changing rooms were more to prevent random make-outs backstage from interrupting the flow of the show. And everyone trusted Maureen to be too absorbed in the lead and Joanne to be too serious to spontaneously snog, so they were together in the dressing room.

"Well, its show time," Roger said, pretending to be bright and cheery to help him get into character. Fiyero did the little finger guns. _Gotta remember to do those somewhere…_ Roger thought as everyone dragged the sofa, chair, and coffee table into a line for seats, which the Ozians… seated… themselves…upon. If there's anything else you do with seats. Mark checked that nobody was watching him, then approached the canon.

"Um, well, first of all, thank you very much for coming," Nods all around. "But… we have next to no budget. The most expensive item in the show is Mi- um, the Nessa chair…" More nods, with a slight smile from Nessa seeing as they spent the most money on her.

"Also, there's only eight people in the cast, and there's a lot of swing parts. Like, everyone except for Maureen and Joanne," Mark pointed to Elphaba and Glinda. "It gets pretty confusing, so bear with us,"

"Shouldn't be a problem," Fiyero said.

"Great," Mark said. "Because, y'know, I didn't want you to get insulted thinking we didn't do justice to your show. Oh," Mark felt the need to add this, mostly because he felt inexplicably proud. "I'm… playing Boq," he said with a small smile. The Ozians compared faces.

"It works," Elphaba said.

"I can see it," Fiyero added.

"Boq's hotter," Nessa said dreamily, discretely trying to hold Boq's hand. Boq happened to notice, and pulled his hand away before Nessa could get it in a vice grip.

"That's just Nessa," Elphaba said. "She will always say Boq's hotter no matter who it is."

"Ah," Mark said, wondering what his childhood self would have done if someone told him the Wicked Witch of the East had the hots for the Tin Man.

"Cohen, get your ass in costume!" Roger shouted from Mark's room. Mark made a face.

"My cue," he said sarcastically, turning around. "Pan to Roger, the self-appointed stage manager from hell!" Elphaba nodded behind Mark's back approvingly at the sarcasm.

Everyone changed hastily into first costume, making sure second costumes were lying around where they could be easily changed into.

"Mo?" Roger the self-appointed Stage Manager of the Guys whispered. "Boys are ready."

"Girls, too," Mimi added, self-appointed Stage Manager of the Girls. Maureen nodded.

"Alrightie," she said, tipping the witch hat in the classic pose over the poster. "Showtime."


	12. Production Number of Eight

**Disclaimer: Long chapter with long descriptions. Bear with me, please. I don't own RENT, I don't own Wicked, and I don't own makeshift performance spaces. Story time! -LostOzian**

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The music was all pre-recorded, consisting of Roger's acoustic, the electric from the Life Café, a piano Joanne had learned to play in a previous life, one of Angel's girlfriends who could play a mean violin, and anything cool that sounded in the moment. Thanks to a bit of recording magic from Mark (and three tango-KOs), it sounded like a full orchestra, even if not all the instruments were usually found in an orchestra.

The lights in the loft went out, the two and only stage lights turning on, bathing the stage area in a yellowy light. Seeing as they needed as many people on stage as possible for No One Mourns the Wicked, instead of Monkeys, Maureen was the first one on stage. She was dressed in a black long-sleeve shirt and black pants, with her witch hat and a sheet tied around her neck. Excessive green eye shadow made a raccoon mask around her face, 'representing' the green skin more than greenifying her.

She did a cool little solo-dance for a little while, but started backing up. As she got further upstage, pairs started entering, one from stage left matching a twin on stage right; Roger, Angel, Collins, Mark, Benny, and Mimi. When Maureen reached the end of the stage, the music changed and she turned around, becoming practically invisible against the backstage area. Everyone else did a three-sixty jump, facing the audience at the end.

"Good news!" they all sang. "She's dead! The Witch of the West is dead!"

"That was cool," Boq said. "When Elphaba turned around, it meant she melted. I never thought to do it that way,"

"Shh!" Glinda said. "I come on soon!" Boq kicked himself for almost ruining Glinda's character entrance.

"Good news! Good _news_!" Everyone sang.

"Look! It's Glinda!" Angel kind of said-screamed, the way the line's done on the soundtrack. Sure enough, Joanne 'floated' in, the skeleton umbrella raised high and covering her in a mini dome of plastic wrap, simulating a bubble.

"It's good to see me, isn't it?" Joanne asked, kind of smirking at everyone. The Bohos were saying discordant agreements when Joanne held up her lawyer-hand, silencing them. "No need to respond. That was _rhetorical_." Joanne sounded a lot more like some sort of schoolteacher.

"Ooh," Glinda whispered. "Scary me."

"No kidding," Boq added, hoping he had permission to speak.

Joanne belted the aria, hitting all the notes, but it was a lot less fluffy than Glinda herself would have sang it, but since she was consistent in her portrayal of Glinda, it worked.

"For you and-" Joanne was singing.

"No one mourns the wicked!" Benny got the first mini-company solo.

"No one cries, 'they won't return!'" Roger got the next line, seeing as there were only three girls on stage, and one of them was supposed to be a witch.

"No one lays a lily on their grave!" Everyone sang. Mark the goody-two-shoes was next.

"The good man scorns the wicked!" Angel and Mimi flanked him to either side.

"Through their lives, our children learn…"

"What we miss, when we misbehave!" Everyone sang with the cool little crescendo at the end.

"Nicely done," Nessa commented.

Joanne got another belted aria, then folded up the umbrella, which apparently meant she wasn't floating in a bubble anymore and everyone was allowed to interact with her. At the end of the line about 'nothing grows for the wicked', Collins, Angel, and Mark surrounded Joanne in the downstage right corner as Benny, Mimi, and Roger bolted off stage at record breaking speeds.

"Glinda, why does wickedness happen?" Angel asked innocently. The Ozians all said 'awww' internally.

"That's a very good question," Joanne said. "Which leads me to ask this; are people born wicked? Or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?" Glinda punched Elphaba's arm lightly.

"Plot point!" she said, beaming at the green Witch.

"Congratulations, Glinda, you paid attention in English." Elphaba said as Roger entered again, fingering a beanie hat with propeller and everything.

"I'm off to the assembly, my dear," he said as Mimi came on stage with her hair in a funny looking hairnet.

"Hey! Father has a full head of hair!" Nessa noticed and said to herself excitedly. Roger started singing.

"How I hate to go and leave you lonely…" It became apparent that in that one line that Roger was far, far too cool for Frex and had been poorly cast, but what could they do with only eight people?

"That's all right, it's only just one night…" Mimi took Roger's beanie and put it on his head. Boq hid his face to keep from laughing; the late Esteemed Governor was wearing a beanie.

"But know that you're here in my heart, while I'm out of your sight!" Roger and Mimi kissed, having won the argument that Frex and Melena must have truly loved each other on some level if they had Nessa later in the show, and then he exited. The music changed, and Benny entered, wearing the Wizard jacket and constantly upstaging himself for the purpose of foreshadowing. Joanne said her line about secrets, and Benny and Mimi started the cool bottle-dance thing. Roger did his best to not to scream backstage as Angel discretely exited.

"Melena dances like a stripper," Fiyero commented.

"I think the actress _is_ a stripper," Elphaba responded.

Benny finally let Mimi have the bottle, which she took a 'drink' from, then took it back and ran off. Mimi stood center stage and mimed the development of pregnancy as Joanne said, "And from the moment she was born, she was… well… different!"

Mimi screamed. Very loudly. The Ozians cringed. Roger and Angel managed to get the Magical Metal Table of Saving Lives onstage, which Mimi fell on, using her experience with withdrawal to act like she was giving birth.

"It's coming!" Angel cried, playing the midwife.

"Now?!" Roger said, sounding very freaked out.

"No, in a week…" Elphaba muttered, smiling, but stopped because she remembered this was the scene where she's born and brutally rejected by the male role model of the house.

"I see a nose…" Angel sang, preparing one of Mark's towels like a good midwife would.

"I see a curl…" Roger added.

"It's a healthy, perfect, lovely little-" Angel screamed. Roger shouted, "Sweet Oz!"

"What is it? What's wrong?" Mimi's line was delivered clearly.

"Wait a clock-tick, if she was in labor, how can she speak so clearly?" Glinda wondered, talking over Angel and Roger. Angel started busying herself with Mark's towel, wrapping up something.

"Like a froggy, ferny cabbage, the baby is unnaturally…" Angel then lifted the towel, showing a baby doll face done up exactly the way Maureen's face was, like a green raccoon mask.

"That's clever, too," Nessa said. "They didn't have to green the whole baby." Elphaba took Fiyero's hand as Roger said his 'take it away' line, and Mimi magically found the strength to help Angel carry the MMToSL offstage

"So you see, it couldn't have been easy!" Joanne unfolded her umbrella again, beginning to fly above everyone else as they continued with the song. Things were going very well, and the Bohos reached the end.

"No one mourns the wicked!"

"Good news!" Joanne sang.

"No one mourns…. the WICKED!"

Two types of guitar, piano, drums, violin, and trash can lids all crashed at the same time.

"WICKED!"

More crashing.

"We get it, we get it, I'm wicked…" Elphaba mumbled. Fiyero smiled.

"WICKED!!!"

And thus the opening number went without incident to the applause of the audience.


	13. The Tiny Class of Bohemians

**Disclaimer: Long chapter, but long wait for it, so I guess it's okay. Wait, no it isn't... I've had about two-thirds of this sitting on my flash drive Friday, then I forgot to bring it home over the Labor Day weekend. And I'm sorry about the ending, too. Dear Old Shiz is a long scene, and I needed to find _somewhere_ to break so The Wizard and I gets a chapter. Ah well. RENT, not mine, Wicked, not mine... What else don't I own? Cheese Doodles, I have no cheesedoodles. I think that covers it. -LostOzian**

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Everybody basked in the glow of the scant applause, before Joanne said her line,

"Well, this has been fun!" Elphaba looked at Glinda as Collins, Mark, and Benny exited.

"Fun?" she asked. "That was how you described it, fun?" Glinda bit her lip and poked Elphaba.

"Glinda!" Roger did the same said-scream that Angel had done. "Is it true you were her _friend_?!" Fiyero leaned across Elphaba slightly to talk to Glinda.

"Wait, Glinda, you and Elphaba were friends?!" he said, smiling. Glinda pouted angrily and poked him, too.

"I did know her- ah, that is, our paths did cross…" Joanne folded up the umbrella. "At school."

The little Dear Old Shiz melodies started, Collins, Benny, and Mark joining the others onstage, looking somehow more student-y. Mark had the scarf tied around his neck like a tie, beaming proudly at the loft ceiling.

"Hey, I think he's you now," Nessa whispered to Boq. Boq wondered where he could get a scarf like Mark's. There was another little melody thing and Roger, Mimi, and Angel high-tailed it off stage.

"When we were both very young," Joanne said, and Maureen ran on stage, having managed to braid her hair by herself backstage and staring at the stage lights like a person watching fireworks for the first time, carrying a drawstring bag. Joanne left. Elphaba started clapping, because this was her little stage twin that just entered, and it was special. Maureen brushed imaginary dirt off her sleeve, preparing herself for school.

"O-oh hallowed halls and vine-draped walls, the proudliest sight there is…" Everyone started singing, including Maureen, and including everyone backstage, because it wouldn't be loud enough if only the four onstage were singing.

"Small graduating class," Nessa noticed.

Maureen turned to see Collins, who immediately jumped backwards in well-acted shock, then tried to skirt around Maureen. Maureen looked kind of hurt and a bit sad, but kept singing, this time turning around as Benny turned to face her. Benny just kept turning, going off in a completely different direction. The three converged on the right side of the stage as Maureen looked at them from the left.

"Our da-a-ays at dear, o-old…" Joanne entered, the tiara turned upside down and clasped around her neck like a collar-necklace thing, symbolizing that she was _Ga_linda now.

"O-o-o-o-old…Shiz…" she passed a large messenger bag off to Mark without looking at him, and Mark proceeded to huggle it like the stalker Boq is.

"Dear old Shizzzzzzzzzz…" Everyone glared at Maureen.

"What?" she said. "What are you all looking at?" Elphaba smirked as Maureen nailed the famous line and dug it deep into the ground with how good it was. "Oh, do I have something on my cheek?" Maureen rubbed slightly at the green makeup as everyone recoiled. "Is my underskirt showing?" Maureen slammed her bag down angrily.

"All right, let's just get this over with," she said, proceeding to count off on her fingers. "No, I am not seasick, yes, I have always been green, no, I did now chew grass as a child…"

"Elphaba!" Roger shouted, pushing Mimi onstage, wearing the dorky governor hat and carrying a shoebox.

"It's me! It's me!" Nessa hissed to anyone who was paying attention. "In the expensive chair!" Mimi did look rather innocent and Nessa-ish, sitting there serenely with her hands folded in her lap.

"Stop making a spectacle of yourself!" Roger picked up his scolding, Maureen's line drowned out by Nessa's excitement. "I'm only sending you to this school for one reason-"

"I know," Maureen said, looking down at Mimi. "To look after Nessa." Roger turned a loving face to Mimi, unable to get Mark's supposedly helpful words out of his head. _"Okay, so she was your wife last scene, but right now, she's your daughter! If you kissed her or something, then you're practicing incest."_ Maybe Mark would have been a better Fiyero. He had the whole 'brainless' thing going on by assuming Roger was that bad of an actor.

"My perfect little girl," Roger said, giving the shoebox to Mimi. "A parting gift?" Mimi opened the box and took out one of the sparkly Converse shoes.

"Oh! Jeweled shoes!" she exclaimed. Elphaba leaned across Glinda and Boq and grabbed Nessa's arm.

"Maybe now you'll rethink whether you wanted the shoes or the chair to be expensive."

Nessa looked back at the Converse skeptically as Roger exited, shoving the shoebox into Elphaba's hands.

"Elphaba…" Mimi was about to say consolingly. Maureen shrugged.

"What can he get me?" she said, giving the shoebox for Mimi to hold on to. "I clash with everything." Glinda slapped Elphaba's arm lightly.

"I can name at least seventeen different shades of pink that would flatter you off the top of my head!" the blonde said.

"_Galinda_," Elphaba said pointedly. "Shush."

"Hello, students!" Angel said brightly, bouncing onstage as Morrible. The Pussy Galore wig had been horribly mutilated and twisted into a kind of beehive thing, which apparently meant she was Morrible. "I am Madame Morrible, headmistress here at Shiz University!"

"No, you're not," Fiyero said. "Too nice."

"And young," Boq added.

"And pretty," Glinda continued.

"And happy," Nessa furthered the trait-listing. Roger snuck onstage without the Governor beanie and supposedly became another student.

"I would have killed to have _her _for headmistress," Elphaba broke the pattern, but it was true. Angel would have kicked Morrible's ass _nine times_ out of five.

Joanne and Maureen had raised their hands, supposedly both with questions about room assignments. It was actually kind of hard to believe it was Joanne; she was twitching her hand in the air and doing a strange dance that slightly resembled Irish river dance at the same time.

"Yes, is this about room assignments?" Angel turned to Joanne, shying away slightly at the energy with which she was raising her hand.

"That's honestly what you looked like, Glinda," Elphaba pointed out.

"Don't speak when I'm speaking!" Glinda hissed, pointing at Joanne.

"-been assigned a private suite," Everybody excepting Maureen, Mimi, and Angel started complaining. Joanne held up a hand, a technique she learned as a lawyer.

"But you can all come visit me whenever you want!" Joanne said. Everyone 'aw'd as Mark was given the lines of Galinda's friends.

"You are so good!" he exclaimed. Boq felt like crawling in a hole.

"No, I'm not," Joanne barely paid attention, turning back to talk to Angel.

"Yes, you are!" Mark continued. Joanne, irritated that Mark was continuing to talk to her, turned around again.

"Now stop!" she said, holding out the 'op' for a little. Mark shut up, looking like he was glowing just because Joanne talked to him.

"I sound gay," Boq muttered.

"Ah, don't say that around them," Elphaba warned. "I think half the cast is gay. Including Glinda and me." The thought struck Boq as rather funny, but he bit his lip to keep from laughing at the thought and continued to watch the show. Angel finished with Joanne and turned to Mimi, even though Maureen was raising her hand.

"Oh, what a tragically beautiful face," Angel said, gently touching Mimi's cheek. And this was okay because they were Amiga-Chicas, and it didn't seem disturbing because Angel was playing a nice beautiful Morrible at the moment. She turned and noticed Greenie Maureenie. Meanie. Bo Beenie. And other 'eenie's.

"I'm the other daughter, Elphaba. I'm beautifully tragic," she said flatly. Angel seemed put off by the sarcastic hostility.

"Let's all poke the cynic!" Glinda said, miming that she was poking Maureen. Nessa and Boq joined in. Fiyero poked Elphaba herself, and Elphaba fumed.

Maureen said her line about staying with her sister, and Angel offered to let Nessa stay with her. Maureen started protesting.

"See? You two are related," Boq made the point to Elphaba. "You're both over-possessive." Elphaba poked him irritably.

Joanne raised her hand at exactly the wrong on-cue time, and Angel decided that Maureen and Joanne should share a room (which all the Bohos found oddly funny, seeing as they were lesbians)

Angel started to take Mimi away, and Maureen started screaming, until finally, "Let her go!"

Despite Mark's really cool idea to use remote control cars, the Bohos decided to not use anything motorized. Angel suddenly turned and pushed the chair back towards Maureen, acting out that this was not of her own free will.

The push only landed Mimi halfway to Maureen, a gap of about five feet in between them. So Maureen had to go get Nessa anyway.

"Should I have tried to help?" Elphaba asked, referring to casting a spell from the audience.

"Nah," Fiyero said. "Give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it was planned that way."


	14. Dr Tom Dillamond Collins To The Rescue!

**Disclaimer: SINCE you all are wonderful reviewers and YOU have been FORCED to put up with ME and my outrageous procrastinating, this has caused me TO UPDATE! (How many people are going to get the subliminal message...) Despite your encouragement, I felt that the ending I left sucked, so this is a shorter chapter, but it's next day, so that should make it good. And I actually had inspiration for this scene. AND I owe it to you because this story had always taken a back seat to the one I have in the Wicked section. I think I'll finish that sometime next week, and RENT will have my undivided attention.**

**I think by now we've established I own nothing that resembles a hit musical. Story time! -LostOzian**

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Everyone onstage started whispering about 'how did she do that?'

"She took a few steps, that's all," Nessa said, referring to Maureen's 'half-cast spell'. Mimi did her best angry look as Maureen knelt beside the chair to beg for forgiveness.

"That's a really sorry picture, when you think of who we become," Elphaba mentioned as Mimi bopped Maureen on the head in punishment.

"You promised things would be different here!" The stripper-playing-crippled scolded.

"What? You mean this has happened before?" Angel jumped on the comment. Maureen turned, still the picture of humble repentance.

"Sometimes something comes over me," she said quietly. "Something I can't control."

"It's called indigestion, Fae," Fiyero said, getting a smile from Elphaba. Maureen seemed to have thought she explained herself, then went back to repenting by Mimi's chair.

"Nessa, I'm so, so sorry…" she was saying.

"What?!" Angel managed to raise her voice a little, but didn't sound scary or old or toady like Morrible did. Because we already established, Angel is greater than Madame Morrible. "Never apologize for talent!"

"Talented Elphie! Yay!" Glinda smiled. Elphaba wondered how much sugar Glinda had consumed before coming here, and how she should kill the person who gave it to her.

Angel started singing about having waited for someone with magical talent to 'appear', thought it was kind of in a different key than Ms. Carol to suit the Drag Queen perfectly. Morrible didn't go that high, but Angel was still pretty limited.

"With a talent like yours, dear, there is a definite chance if you work as you should… you'll be making good…" Angel took Mimi offstage, unnoticed by Maureen.

"If the person playing Morrible wasn't so nice, I would flip her off or something, just because it's Morrible and she just fed me full of lies." Elphaba said.

"But you won't?" Fiyero made sure.

"I won't." Elphaba said as everyone else went offstage, leaving Joanne staring at an awe-struck Maureen, the latter lost in her own little world.

"Wait a clock-tick," Joanne said. "I didn't get my way!" It had been a private joke among everyone that wasn't a lesbian (or dating a lesbian…) that Joanne never got her way anyway; it was always Maureen's way, but nevertheless, Joanne hit the line well, and exited. The key changed and Maureen's part of The Wizard and I started.

In hindsight, The Wizard and I had to be the most mournfully foreshadowing-stuffed song in existence. Maureen's vocal chords of titanium held up very well, even after all these rehearsals. Everybody backstage was starting to get bored, because all that happened next was they became students, and they had already changed by the line 'what I've waited for since birth'. Mark and Benny crossed stage in between two lines so they could pointedly avoid Maureen, but that was it.

"And I swear someday there'll be a celebration throughout Oz, that's all to do…" Maureen took a deep breath. "With me-e-e…" The sound echoed off of the loft, rebounding and causing the song to seem even louder.

"Man, this song has a lot of vibrato," Mark said to Roger.

Suddenly, Maureen keeled over laughing, completely breaking out of the song. Mimi, the one closest to the sound system thingie, paused the song as everyone looked around in panic. _What the hell was Maureen doing?!_

Turns out The Diva didn't have any say in what she was doing at all. She had heard Mark backstage, yet because of the volume of the song, she had thought he had said, 'Man, this song is like a vibrator'. And that had to have been one of the funniest things Maureen had heard since last Tuesday when Angel parodied 'Something Bad' to the tune of 'I'm Too Sexy'.

"We gotta do something!" Benny was looking around for something. Collins came to the rescue, throwing on the Dr. Dillamond coat (an inside-out and heavily used sheepskin jacket) and going out on stage.

"Hello?" he said in the Dr. Dillamond voice. Maureen looked at him, tears causing her green eye makeup to run a little bit. "Is there any particular reason you're on the ground?"

"Oh… n… no…." Maureen started to get a hold of herself. "I'm… I'm sorry…" Collins smiled, extending a hand for Maureen to stand up.

"This is off script!" Elphaba noted, impressed the Bohos had found a way to tamper with the script.

"I'm Dr. Dillamond," Collins held out his hand, kept in a fist because Dr. Dillamond would have had hooves. Maureen took Collins' fist, shaking it as she tried to get her smile under control.

"Elphaba Thropp," Maureen said. Collins acted amazed.

"Oh yes! I remember your entrance essay, the diamond among clods of mud," Collins said. "I expect great things from you, Miss Elphaba…" Collins nodded in goodbye, leaving stage and continuing to mutter, "Yes, great things…" Maureen, queen of improv and realizing that Collins had just saved her sorry ass, started smiling wolfishly.

"Great things…" she repeated. "Great things indeed!" she spread her arms, starting to back up again like she would have for the 'And I'll stand there with the Wizard' line. Mimi clicked the song to turn on.

"And I'll stand there with the Wizard!" Maureen continued.

"Collins, you are genius," Joanne said, finally exhaling.

"That's the only reason they let him in the front door of MIT," Roger said, patting Collins on the back.


	15. Is It Menopause Or Hatred?

**Disclaimer: Okay, I feel like an emo-child right now because I lost a volleyball game and my team prepared an intervention for why I don't smile on the court, when really I'm just not a smiley person when it comes to the v-ball. But don't bother consoling me, because by the time I get it my slight bipolarness will have made me forget and it's all good. I just feel less emo telling people about it. And Wicked, RENT, not mine... This is Loathing. **

**And Defying Gravity 728, my internet cut out on the board. I was not ignoring you. So I finished and posted to make you happier. -LostOzian **

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"The Wizard…" Maureen prepared. "And I!"

Mark stayed thankfully silent as Maureen finished the song and Joanne entered onstage from the other side. It was 'What is This Feeling' time, the prompt of another joke that Maureen and Joanne were going to sing about being in love as the script said that they were singing about hating each other.

"Dearest darlingest Momsie and Popsicle," Joanne said as if these were her parents' actual names. Everyone excluding Glinda laughed.

"My dear father," Maureen said, stressing 'father' sarcastically.

"There's been some confusion over rooming here at Shiz…" Four people sang, though Elphaba and Glinda sang in their heads as Joanne and Maureen were singing out loud.

"Though of course I'll care for Nassa," Maureen sang.

_Nassa? _Everyone thought. Apparently 'care for Nessa' was hard for Maureen to sing, so she just sang it as 'Nassa' and waited for people to search the lyrics on the internet before they found out what the hell she was talking about. Or maybe she only did that because that's what Idina Menzel did on the soundtrack.

"But of course, I'll _rise_ above it!" Joanne looked as happy as an anal retentive lesbian lawyer could. Kind of a smirky, everything's cool smile.

"For I know that's how you'd want me to respond… yes," Everybody backstage tapped the air with one finger at the same time on the _ding_ in the music. Because it was a cool ding.

"There's been some confusion, for you see, my roommate is…" Joanne looked at Maureen with one eyebrow raised.

"Un_u_sually and exceedingly pe_cu_liar and altogether quite im_pos_sible to desc_ri_be…" She scooped on the vowels in half of the long words. Elphaba laughed.

Maureen looked to Joanne, almost sympathetically, before saying, "_Blonde_." The way she said it made it sounded exactly like an adjective characterizing ditzy people rather than describing hair color. Because Joanne was nowhere near blonde and wasn't about to peroxify her hair.

Joanne and Maureen stood on stage as the music played, gathering nervous energy and looking completely awkward for being in the same room with each other, which proved to the Bohos once again that the Resident Lesbos were amazing actresses. Finally, Joanne started singing.

"What is this feeling, so sudden and new?" she sang, still not looking at Maureen.

"I felt the moment I laid eyes on you?" Maureen sang, except for the 'laid eyes on you' part that Ms. Menzel had neglected to sing on the soundtrack, and Maureen was going for a perfect Idina-Elphie.

"My pulse is rushing," Joanne said, tugging at the tiara-collar.

"My head is reeling," Maureen added, leaning back slightly to indicate a reeling head.

"My face is flushing, **what is this feeling?**" Maureen joined in Joanne's line, and they started singing together. "Fervid as a flame… does it have a name? Yes…" Joanne and Maureen started walking toward each other, with a cool little harmony-crescendo.

_Menopause! _All the Bohos thought as Joanne and Maureen sang, "Loa-thing! Unadulterated loa-thing!"

"For your face!"

"Your voice!"

"Your clo-thing!"

"Let's just say… I loathe it all!" Mark closed his eyes for a moment and pretended Maureen and Joanne really were fighting, and Maureen was going to run to him and ask for him to take her back…

Then Roger kicked him, and made him look back at the stage.

"Every little trait, however small, makes my very flesh begin to crawl…" Joanne had put her thumb to her nose and fanned out her fingers, wiggling them at Maureen. Everybody who saw fought bursting out laughing, with the exception of the Ozians, who were allowed to laugh at the jokes. They laughed out loud.

"Glinda, would you ever do that?" Elphaba asked her best friend.

"Maybe," Glinda said. "Back when we hated each other, I might have."

"Wait, did you or didn't you?"

"I might have! I'm leaving it at that!"

"Though I do admit it came on fast, still, I do believe that it can last!" Everyone except the actresses on stage looked at Elphaba and Glinda in a 'yeah, right' fashion. "And I will be loathing, loathing you my whole… life… long!"

Instantly, Benny, Roger, and Angel were onstage, crossing to Joanne's side. Angel was in her usual favored wig, and Roger and Benny were just Roger and Benny.

"Dear Galinda, you are just too good!" Maureen glared at them all as Joanne reveled in being fawned over.

"How do you stand it, I don't think I could!" Mark, Collins, and Mimi rushed to Joanne's side from the other side of the stage.

"Hey, she's walking! I can't walk!" Nessa complained, pointing at Mimi.

"She's not you," Boq corrected. "Until Wicked Witch of the East, or the moment my life went to hell, you're symbolized by a wheelchair." Nessa proceeded to sulk as the Bohos declared Joanne a martyr.

"These things are sent to try us!" Joanne sang proudly. Maureen pretended to gag.

"Poor-Ga-lin-da-forced-to-re-side…" the temporary chorus sang. "With-some-one-so-dis-gus-tic-i-fied…"

"I love that word," Glinda said randomly. "Disgusticified. It's so big."

"I thought you hated big words," Elphaba said.

"Just the boring ones. I never pay attention to the boring ones," Glinda announced.

The big what is this feeling/loathing harmonies started, which would be too confusing to put into script, but let's just say there was a clump of seven people dancing in opposite to a single person, so Maureen looked rather alone and emo-child. Like Elphaba was known to occasionally resemble. And nobody tripped, which was a miracle in itself.

"And I will be loathing, for, forever loathing, truly, deeply, loathing you…!" Joanne and Maureen were pointing fingers now as the others crowded around Joanne.

"Loathing you!" the harmony echoed.

"My whole life long!" Joanne and Maureen walked toward each other. The music did it's cute little staccato notes, before Maureen shouted "Boo!" and Joanne and Glinda screamed.

"Glinda, you were scared by that?" Fiyero asked.

"I hadn't been expecting it, okay?!" she responded as the Bohos set up for the classroom scene.


	16. Love Shack! Baby, Love Shack!

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. I deserve to be burned at stake for how long it took me to update this. I'm sorry. I hope the chapter's worth it, though. -LostOzian**

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Mimi, Mark, Collins, and Angel had all bolted offstage after Joanne and Glinda screamed, then returned momentarily with various props. Mimi was in the Nessa chair, toting two paper bags, and handed one to Maureen. Mark used masking tape to tape a piece of poster board with various school-like scribbles on it to the back wall. Angel returned onstage and started passing out copies of Where the Lilies Bloom to act as textbooks to everyone, and even grudgingly gave one to Maureen. Everyone aligned themselves on the floor, sitting cross-legged (except Mimi) in a line facing the audience. There was a considerable gap between Maureen and everyone else, with Mimi sitting, isolated, to Maureen's other side. Collins then reappeared onstage with a bunch of papers sandwiched between his fists. Most of them were reject essays from his own classes.

"Now, class, settle down!" Collins said, rustling the papers slightly as the class did settle down. "I have read your most recent essays, and I am pleased to report…" Collins paused dramatically. "_Some _progress!" he finished proudly, beaming at his students. He wished he was able to face his students with the same peppy optimism, but sadly, New York college students weren't Shiz students, and it was hard to cope. He started passing out essays, beginning with Joanne.

"Miss Glinda…" he said, giving her a random essay with a lot of red marks on it and headed toward Roger on the far side of the stage as Joanne said her line.

"It's Ga-linda," she said snobbily. "With a Ga." Collins stopped and turned around.

"Oh, sorry." He prepared himself to try again. "Miss… Gh-h-h-hlinda." Joanne glared at him as he shrugged feebly, apparently saying 'that's the best I can do', and he moved on.

"I don't see what the problem is," Joanne said, apparently talking to Angel by her side but the whole room could hear. "Every other professor seems to be able to pronounce my name."

"Perhaps perfecting the pronunciation of your _precious _name is not the sole focus of Dr. Dillamond's life." Maureen articulated, not looking up from her tortured copy of Where the Lilies Bloom. "Perhaps he isn't like every other professor, perhaps some of us-" Maureen looked up, apparently accentuating the green skin. "-are different."

"Burn, Glinda," Fiyero smiled. Glinda shifted a little. This was not her crowning moment.

"Well, it seems the artichoke is _steamed_." Joanne said, dripping bitchiness. The whole 'class' erupted in congratulations, giving Glinda high fives and laughing. Mimi just sat there, indifferent, and Maureen looked like she was going to turn purple under the green makeup.

"Burn, Elphaba!" Boq tried to sound cool, but Fiyero, Glinda, and Elphaba all just shook their heads at him. Nessa blinked adoringly, but Boq tried to focus on the show, ignoring her.

"Now, class! Class!" Collins pawed at the floor a few times, and everyone was thankful it was Mimi's loft below them with the force of his leg. Because they had rehearsed that scene dozens of times, and probably would have been kicked out by the neighbors as opposed to Benny. "Miss Elphaba has a point!" Collins went off into the big monologue about how Animals were disappearing from prominent positions. Elphaba and Maureen could have been exchanged and nobody would know the difference; they were both staring at Collins with rapt, admiring, and undivided attention. Glinda poked Elphaba, causing her to start.

"Shouldn't you be taking notes?" she asked. Elphaba actually reached beneath her chair for paper and pen before realizing that Glinda had finally managed to play a prank on her. The green Witch had forgotten it was just a performance.

"Not funny, Glinda," Elphaba said lowly as her best friend muffled hysterics.

"I'm going to tell them about it once they're done!" Glinda promised, before going back to the show. By now, Collins was talking about the Great Drought.

"And the question came, whom to blame?" Collins looked down the line of Boho College students, or Shiz students. "Can anyone tell me what is meant by the term 'scapeGoat'?" Maureen's hand shot into the air as everybody else looked around, begging each other to raise their hand and spare them embarrassment. Collins looked at Maureen for a moment.

"Someone… besides Miss Elphaba?" Joanne raised her hand slowly, to the awe and respect of everyone else. Collins jumped on the chance to call on someone else.

"Yes! Miss Glinda!" he said. Joanne froze.

"It's GA-linda!" she said irritably. "With a GA! And I don't see why you can't just teach us history instead of always harping on the past!" Everyone with the exclusion of Collins, Maureen, and Mimi started ad-libbing agreement. Mimi kind of sat there, thinking it over, Maureen looked like she was getting ready to go strangle her girlfriend, and Collins held one of his hoof-fists against his forehead in exasperation.

"Well… maybe these questions will help!" Collins went to the poster board at the back of the room and flipped it around, magically gaining temporary use of his opposable thumbs for the act. He stayed facing the audience, not looking at the poster until he had turned it around.

They had stolen a big, angry, red Sharpie from Joanne's boss' office, and used it to write in huge block letters, 'Animals should be seen and not heard'.

Silence descended upon the loft. An absolute, deafening silence that made everyone fully aware that Mimi had forgotten to shut of the radio in her loft as 'Love Shack' drifted up through the floor. Collins looked down, delivering his line to the floor so nobody would see him smiling.

"Who is responsible for this?" he asked as the radio kept going, "Love shack! Baby, love shack!" The Ozians started laughing at the sheer irony that a song like _that _just _had _to be playing during the classroom scene.

"I am waiting for an _answer_!" The line drowned out the song for a moment, reminding everybody they were still doing a show. The Boho students looked around, waiting for their classmates to own up. Nobody did, so Collins continued. "Very well. Class dismissed!" Everybody just sat there. "You heard me! Class dismissed!" And all at once, everybody got up to go offstage, with Roger, in a fit of daring, not going offstage at all, yet instead going out to the balcony with the fire escape to get to Mimi's apartment to turn off the radio. Maureen let Mimi roll herself offstage, then turned to Collins. He was staring somewhere in the house, not looking at anyone and apparently thinking over what had happened, trying to keep his mind off of 'Love Shack'.

"Animals should be seen and not heard?" Maureen read. The poster board tape chose that moment to fall down. Collins turned his natural laugh into a forced laugh as he picked up the poster board.

"Miss Elphaba, don't worry about me, go enjoy your friends," Collins said, passing the poster board to Mark offstage.

"That's okay. I have no friends." Maureen said flatly, and sat back down on the floor. She offered to share her lunch with Collins, who agreed, and started chewing on the bag. And he was actually chewing on the bag as opposed to the rehearsed fake chewing. Collins knew it wouldn't stand up to the Ozians, so made a sacrifice. Angel looked from offstage, wrinkling her nose as she adjusted the Morrible wig.

"No bedtime kiss for him tonight," she whispered to Mimi, who almost choked with the effort of staying silent.

Collins and Maureen began the 'Something Bad' song, with the baaing and everything, staying much more with the blocking than the eating paper move would suggest. Thankfully, the paper didn't gum up Collins' voice or anything, and the song went smoothly. Angel went on, and asked about the 'disturberance' in class.

"Only problem is, she sounds like she really cares!" Boq said. "That's the kind of Morrible that would bake you non-cursed cookies and help you get your GPA up!"

"Or extend curfew for the night of homecoming dance!" Glinda said, remembering an appeal she tried to make to Morrible, which had failed.

"Or not kick you out of school for burning down the flagpole!" Fiyero said, remembering a different yet still rather unpleasant, headmistress.

"Wait… you burned down a flagpole?" Elphaba stared at Fiyero, unforgiving.

"It… was a very long time ago?" Fiyero offered weakly. Elphaba folded her arms as Angel Dumontt-Schunard-Morrible exited. Collins and Maureen went on with the song.

"Dr. Dillamond," Maureen said. "If something bad is happening to the Animals, someone's got to tell the Wizard. That's why we have a Wizard!" Benny did an 'I'm all that' pose backstage as Mimi, Angel, and Mark did jazz hands, much to the amusement of Roger and Joanne on the other side of the stage.

"Nothing truly ba-a-a-ad…" Collins jumped as he bleated. Maureen froze, staring at Collins like he had no head. "Sorry," he whispered. "Bad." And he ran offstage, leaving Maureen alone.

"It couldn't happen here in Oz…" she sang mournfully.

"But it _could _happen at the Love Shack," Boq said.


	17. Swear By the Stripper

**Disclaimer: Dancing Through Life 1! You know you've been dying to see a peppy Roger. Yes you have. Wicked, RENT, Not mine. -LostOzian**

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Maureen left the stage, and everyone else entered; Angel, Benny, Joanne, Mark, and Mimi in the Nessa chair. They were just loitering around without any purpose whatsoever, when Mark decided he should try to approach Joanne, clutching a copy of 'Where the Lilies Bloom' tightly for support.

"M-Miss Galinda?" Mark asked as the first line in the scene before Dancing Through Life. "Remember me?" Joanne looked at him blankly for a moment.

"Oh! Yes, hello, Bick!" she said with almost too much pep.

"It's Boq," Mark said, acting very well that he liked Joanne. Which was really awkward when you thought about it. Hell, you didn't even need to think about it, it was just awkward.

"Okay, _now_ I sound pathetic," Boq said.

"Would you rather you sounded gay?" Elphaba asked.

"You're never pathetic!" Nessa tried to hug Boq, but he caught her arms and hand to pseudo-wrestle so he wouldn't get glomped. Finally, he stood up and managed to get Fiyero to sit next to Nessa, so it was Boq-Elphaba-Glinda-Fiyero-Nessa.

"Just until she cools down," Boq said, eyeing the girl on the far end of the row warily. Elphaba sent Boq a death glare for moving Fiyero away from her, but didn't do anything. Yet.

Especially since Roger was just entering as Fiyero. Collins was playing the role of the servant, which Winnie Holzman named Avaric, probably to the discomfort of Gregory Maguire, who had written Avaric as a pompous character very high in social standing. But that didn't matter. Roger was piggybacking Collins, pretending to be asleep, as the man who had spent last scene as a teacher crossed the stage.

"Here we are, sir! Shiz University!" Collins announced, giving Roger a bump for good measure. Roger jolted 'awake'.

"What, already?" he said, patting Collins shoulders and eventually getting down. Collins leaned in close, pretending to be helping Roger with something.

"Man, lose some weight already, you're heavy," he said, covered by Joanne's line about 'That's Fiyero Tiggular!'

"I'm going to kill you, Tom," Roger promised cheerily, before stretching and delivering his line.

"Don't worry, Avaric, I'll be back home soon," he said. "Won't last any longer at this school than I have at any of the others." They did a cool secret handshake with a jump at the end, and Collins ran off the way he came. Roger stood around for a minute, chilling, when Joanne approached him.

She tossed her hair. Which was kind of funny, because her hair was really short. Then Roger tossed his hair, which was really funny, because his hair was longer than Joanne's. Glinda tossed her hair from the audience, which swished Fiyero and Elphaba.

"Watch it," Elphaba said.

"Watch what?" Glinda asked blankly.

"The performance and the peroxide."

"Looking for something, or…" Joanne chose to strike a pose this time. She was leaning back a little bit, standing with hands on hips and legs about a yard apart. She looked ridiculous. "…someone?" Roger did finger guns, and pulled a crumpled ball of paper out of his pocket. Fiyero hid his head in his hands.

"He added those in!" he said. "I only did them because I thought they were New York-ish! He thinks they're Ozian!" Mark looked over Roger's shoulder, reading the schedule, which was actually an old shopping list. Collins snuck back onstage to join the student body.

"That's in the history building, which is very far away, that way," Mark took Roger's arm and started dragging him away from Joanne. Joanne grabbed Roger's arm and dragged back, winning ground against Mark.

"That class just ended," she promised. Roger looked from Mark, to Joanne, then out at the audience before spinning in a circle and freeing himself from both Mark and Joanne's clutches.

"Perfect timing," he said. Fiyero nodded approvingly. When they had first came to the loft, this guy had practically been giving off an aura of angsty loner emo-ness, but apparently his first impression had been very wrong. The actor had him so perfectly that there was no chance that he could be plagued by insane amounts of baggage, or have any sort of inclination toward drugs or suicidal women.

"So what does one do for fun around here?" Roger asked, brushing his nails on his shoulder. Joanne giggled.

"Nothing," she said, completely basing her performance off of Maureen. "Until now…"

"For the record, Fiyero, I was hoping you would take me to your room when I said that," Glinda said casually. Fiyero blinked.

"I don't get it," he said. Unfortunately, he missed Mark's studying line and picked up in the middle of his.

"It seems the responsibility to corrupt my fellow students falls to me…" Roger slung an arm around Mark's shoulders. "Fortunately, I'm up to the task. The trouble with schools is, they always try to teach the wrong lesson…" The music started up. "Believe me, I've been kicked out of enough of them to know… They want you to become less shallow, less…" Roger stopped. "Um… Um… _callow_!" he finally came up with the word. Joanne went into hysterics until she noticed both Mark and Roger were looking at her, Mark sadly disappointed, and Roger as if he was saying 'are you done?'. She stopped.

"But I say, why abide stressing?" Roger stole Mark's prop book and tore a page out of the back, throwing page and book offstage. "Stop studying strife…" Mark looked horrified, running away to save his Most Precious Prop, Mister Bookykins. Roger turned to Joanne. "And learn to life the unexamined life…" Fiyero could barely sit still, smiling as Roger began the signature part of Dancing Through Life, tapping out the rhythm on his knee.

"Dancing through life, skimming the surface, gliding where turf is smooth…" Roger spun, and Joanne copied him, and somewhere in the background, Angel copied him, too. Mark retrieved the book, bringing it back onstage proudly, only to have Roger steal it from him and throw it off to the other side during his next line.

"Life's more painless for the brainless, why think to hard, when it's so soothing, dancing through life!" Mark was forced to run offstage again.

"No need to tough it, when you can sluff it off as I do!" Roger spun again, and this time Joanne spun with him, and so did Angel, Collins, and Benny.

"Nothing matters but knowing nothing matters! It's just life, so keep dancing through…" Roger, Joanne, Collins, Angel, and Benny all got to do a cool little eight-count routine as Mimi sat in her chair, bouncing a little bit, and Mark retrieved the book again and stared at them, looking afraid that he would soon be enlisted to dance.

Maureen always got very, very bored during this scene, and found her special hidden paddleball paddle and started trying to find out if she could get above twenty nine for this run through.

Nessa was also getting extremely annoyed by now, because Fiyero was practically dancing in his chair to his song, and it was getting annoying. Finally, she poked him very hard on the shoulder.

"Hey, could you go tell Boq I'll calm down? I really appreciate it," she added a little edge to her voice. Fiyero blinked, yet agreed.

"And always keeping cool!" Roger was standing upstage, with everyone else kind of crouched down a bit lower than him to create the illusion of height. "Life is fraught-less, when you're thoughtless, those who don't try never look foolish!"

Fiyero returned to Boq's original seat, much to Nessa's dismay.

"He says he doesn't believe you," Fiyero said.

"No! I promise! Promise, promise, promise, swear on the shoes!" Nessa kicked one leg forward to show off the ruby slippers, as if there was any other pair of shoes she could be swearing on. Fiyero moved again.

"Woes are fleeting, blows are glancing, when you're dancing… through life!" Roger held the note, before ending it and going into lines.

"So," he said. "What's the most swankified place in town?" Joanne stood there thinking for a moment as the others pondered.

"That would be the OzDust ballroom!" Joanne offered at last, sounding insanely proud of herself.

"Sounds perfect," Roger said. Fiyero returned to Nessa again.

"He doesn't want you to swear on the shoes," Fiyero said. "Shoes are bad." Nessa's jaw dropped.

"For Oz's sake, what do I have to swear on to get him to come back?!"

Fiyero was gone again.

"Right- on- down to the OzDust ballroom!" Roger was doing a kind of disco with Joanne as everyone else was dancing like they were going to a party. "C'mon, follow me… You'll be happy to be there… Dancing through life!" Roger held the note, experimenting with the pitch a little bit.

"Down at the OzDust!" Everybody added.

"If only because dust is what we come to!" Roger spun around with a dance solo Collins taught him.

"Nothing matters but knowing nothing matters!"

"Shit! Twenty-eight!" Maureen cursed quietly, swinging the paddleball around to try to get it to start bouncing again.

"It's just… Li-i-ife!"

"So keep dancing through!" Roger was about to start headbanging when Mark walked up to him, getting in his face to make him back down. The roommates stared at each other for a moment, before finally Roger walked away slowly, starting to preen himself. Fiyero returned right before Mark started talking to Joanne.

"He wants you to swear on her," Fiyero pointed at Mimi on the edge of the stage, looking rather alone and loveless there. "He says if you don't stay calm, he's going to kill her in the middle of the performance and there'll be nobody to play you."

"Fine! I swear by her!" Nessa hissed. "I swear by the stripper! Now get Boq back here!" Fiyero was gone again.

"See that tragically beautiful girl…" Joanne was singing. Mark was still staring at Joanne. "The one in the chair!" Joanne prompted, and finally got Mark to look at Mimi. "It seems so unfair, we should go on a spree, and not she, gee!" Joanne looked up at the ceiling wistfully, hands clasped like she was some little church girl. "I know someone would be my hero if that someone were… to go invite _her_!" Mark stood there for a second. Then two. Then three.

"I could invite her!" he said suddenly. Joanne clapped her hands in joy.

"Oh, Bick! Really!? You would do that for me?" Mark took Joanne's hand.

"I would do anything for you, Miss Galinda," he said.

Boq returned to his seat. Nessa felt about to glomp him in joy.

"You promised to calm down," he said before she could do anything.

"I knowwww…" Nessa twitched a little in restraining herself. "You have no idea how much self-control this takes."

"Glad to know you have some," Boq said as Mark pushed Mimi offstage.

"Mean!" Nessa insisted.

"True," Boq countered.

And the argument ended. The show continued.

Microsoft Word suggested I change 'Tiggular' to 'Singular'. Doesn't it know Yero is never single:p


	18. Go Get My Hat, NOW!

**Disclaimer: Geeh, it's short. I just really needed to get this up so I could move on. I'm sitting there staring at the ending, trying to see how best to continue, but I couldn't do it, so here it is. The next scene should be longer, though. Wicked, RENT, lots of other stuff, not mine. Readers' forgiveness? Probably not mine. Story time! -LostOzian**

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"You're good," Roger said, walking up to Joanne slowly. She tittered and turned away.

"I don't know what you mean," Joanne said. "Though I do happen to be free tonight, so…"

"So I'll be picking you up around, eight?" Roger suggested casually. Joanne smiled. Elphaba chose this moment to throw her arms around Fiyero's neck, almost as if staking her claim. Fiyero understood her reasoning, so rather than sit there awkwardly, he held her back as Joanne and Roger started singing.

"Now that we've met one another…" Joanne sang.

"It's clear we deserve each other!" They both sang, walking closer. Joanne looked Roger over.

"You're perfect," she said. This wasn't strictly true, because Roger still had days where angsty depression and a desire to be only with his guitar settled in, and being HIV positive wasn't that much of a mood improver. The only reason Mimi let him do this is that he would spend the next two or three days making it up to her. And she didn't mind the way he made up one bit.

"_You're _perfect," Roger returned, smiling slightly. This wasn't that true, either, because Joanne was all-around obsessive compulsive, and had even stolen Collins' grade book (twice) and organized it because it was too messy. On top of that, she had actually shown up in court unprepared one of the days because organizing the grade book had taken the whole night.

"So we're perfect together!" This was a _complete_ lie, because everyone had imagined what it would be like if Roger and Joanne were a couple, and Roger was having an angsty guitar day and Joanne was trying to get him to clean his room. It would be even worse than Maureen and Joanne on bad days. RogerxJoanne good days would make MoJo bad days look happy and fluffy. "Born to be forever dancing through life!"

They spun around, and then left. Maureen entered, pushing Mimi's chair.

"It's absurd!" the Drama Queen was saying. "This silly rich boy appears and everyone's off to worship him and some cultish social gathering!"

"Even me!" the CatScratch Queen gushed. "I'm going!" Maureen stared at Mimi as if she had just said she had gotten a tattoo of a squirrel on her face. "Isn't it wonderful? Boq was too shy to ask me at first, but once Galinda encouraged him-"

"Galinda?!" Maureen cut Mimi off, preparing to go on a rant of why she hated 'Galinda' with a passion.

"Don't hate me because I'm beautiful, Elphie!" Glinda did a puppy dog look for Elphaba.

"Glinda, now's not the best time to talk to me," Elphaba said softly, concentrating on the fact that Fiyero was not going out with Glinda, and that she loved him.

"Finally, for this one night, I'm about to have a fun night…" Mimi was singing. "With this Munchkin boy Galinda found for me…"

"Boq?" Nessa said quietly. "I have a favor to ask."

"What?" Boq glanced at Nessa.

"You know at the OzDust?" she continued.

"Yeah…" Boq looked at the stage again. Mimi was singing for Elphaba to see that they deserved each other, and didn't she see this was their chance?

"It's the only scene that you kind of maybe could potentially like me," Nessa said. "And I…"

"What?" Boq prompted.

"CanIholdyourhandatleastuntilMorribleenterspleaseitwouldmeanalotandIpromisetobecalmtherestofthenight…" Nessa looked away. Boq took a moment to translate what she actually said.

"…Fine," he said at last. "But you have to promise to let go after."

"I swear on the stripper," Nessa promised.

By now Mimi and Maureen had left, and Joanne was onstage with Angel acting as her friend. The MMToSL had been dragged onstage again, covered with various boxes and bags, suggesting that Joanne and Angel had been shopping. They were getting ready for the dance.

"Now I'll accesorify myself for Fiyero," Joanne said, bouncing a little bit. Angel turned to the Table and pulled the witch hat out of one of them.

"Galinda, what in Oz is this?" she demanded, giving the hat a little shake.

"It's the hat!" Glinda almost squealed.

"Yes, I can see it's the hat," Elphaba said, borderline sarcastic. More like she was undermining Glinda's intelligence.

"I'd give it away, but I don't hate anyone that much," Joanne said, flipping her hair again. Angel started bouncing herself.

"Yes, you do!" she said. Joanne froze.

"I couldn't…" Joanne said. "Could I?" The music started again, and Angel spun away and Maureen entered.

"Listen, Galinda, my sister and I were talking about you just now-" Maureen started, almost sheepishly, when Joanne cut her off.

"And I was just talking about you!" Joanne said, offering Maureen the hat. Maureen looked at it for a moment. "I thought you might want to wear this hat to the party tonight!" Maureen looked at the hat, looking kind of sad. Like she didn't want to take a gift from 'Galinda', but the hat was just too cute to pass up.

Glinda stole Elphaba's hat and tried to throw in onstage. It fell short, but everyone knew that the hat had been thrown at the stage. Joanne managed to continue on with the 'It's really, ah, sharp! Don't'cha think?' part as everyone else tried not to laugh.

"Glinda." Elphaba said, emotionless.Glinda giggled.

"Yes, Elphie?" she said happily.

"Go get my hat." The Witch said in the same tone. "_Now_." All of the blonde's girly giggling stopped, and she went and retrieved the hat as Joanne pressed the Boho Witch Hat into Maureen's hands.

"So, here! Out of the goodness of my heart!" And Joanne ran off stage. Glinda pointed at Joanne's back as she gave the hat back to Elphaba, as if to say, "I'm not afraid of you, I just did it out of the goodness of my heart!" Maureen stood there for a moment, staring at the hat like it was an injured puppy begging her to nurse it back to health. Roger poked Mark backstage.

"That's what you look like when looking at your scarf," he said. Mark shoved him.

"Shut up," he said, before spending a moment with Mr. Scarfykins to make sure his feelings weren't hurt.


	19. The Chapter Before Joanne's Popular

**Disclaimer: I got off my ass and updated. I hope you're happy, I hope you're happy now... Wicked and RENT are not mine. -LostOzian**

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The OzDust was represented by streamers all over the place. They weren't all the nice pretty crepe paper streamers (ribbons, ties, a few of Maureen's glittery belts, the belt out of Mimi's jaguar coat, and a three oddly colored shoelaces were given equal glory to the pieces of pink, blue, and white crepe paper streamers all over the stage. In the sixteen beats before the party 'started', Collins, Benny, Angel, Mimi, and Mark all ran about on stage to get al the decorations up, then all but Benny and Collins cleared stage to start the party.

The two began the solo dances, looking like someone had put a mirror down the middle of the stage and only one person was dancing. Roger and Joanne joined them soon, and they danced as a couple, and after that Mark rolled Mimi onstage in the Nessa Chair. Nessa herself took this as the beginning of the Great Bessa Scene of Musicalverse, and took Boq's hand. Mark was standing about awkwardly, watching Joanne, and Mimi sipped at an empty Deer Park paper cup.

"What's in the punch?" she asked to make conversation. Mark didn't look at her.

"Lemons and melons and pears," he recited.

"Oh my," Mimi said innocently. Elphaba hit her leg in an unexpected display of violence.

"Wizard of Oz!" she hissed. "I hate Wizard of Oz! Completely screwed everything up."

"Calm down, Elphaba," Fiyero said, holding her close. "It was supposed to be funny." Elphaba just fumed as Mark started singing, "Listen, Nessa?"

"Yes?" Mimi perked up. Mark seemed to be turning red, like Roger's mashed potatoes and ketchup analogy of fourteen chapters ago.

"Uh, Nessa, I've got something to confess-a reason why, well…" Mark seemed to become increasingly awkward as he continued singing, and Mimi didn't really seem to notice. She just kept making puppy dog eyes at him, waiting for him to get to the point. "Why I asked you here toni-i-ight. Now, I know it isn't fair…" Mimi looked down, finally 'understanding' what Mark was saying.

"Oh, Boq," she said. "I know why." Roger led Joanne off toward stage left, behind Mimi but in Boq's line of sight.

"You do?" he asked, worried that she would hate him forever, or something like that.

"It's because I'm in this chair, and you felt sorry for me," Nessa looked up, teary-eyed, and Joanne and Roger started kissing. "Well, isn't that right?" Mark looked at her, and was 'distracted' in the middle of his line by Joanne and Roger sucking face.

"No, it's because… uh…" he seemed to swallow and work up the nerve. "Because… because you are so beautiful!" He knelt down to prove his point. Mimi was over the moon. Not in Maureen's protest style, but really, really happy.

"Oh, Boq! I think you're wonderful!" Mimi sang.

Maureen reached thirty on her paddleball, and bit her tongue to keep from screaming out, "I DID IT!"

"And we deserve each other, don't you see this is our chance?" Mimi continued.

"There are three or four songs that just keep getting reprised over and over again…" Fiyero noticed. 'Listen, Nessa' was one of them.

"You know what?" Mark said, letting go of his nervous awkwardness. "Let's dance."

"What?!" Mimi exclaimed, not entirely sure if Mark was speaking to her.

"Let's daaaaaaance!" Mark held out the note for a while, taking Mimi's chair and pushing her out in between Benny and Collins, breaking the mirror look.

"Not on the soundtrack!" Glinda noticed. Elphaba rolled her eyes.

"Of course. The soundtrack edits out all of the major plot." Elphaba said.

Mark and Mimi danced for a little while, and everything was going well when Mark gasped. He skipped a turn, instead bending down to kiss Mimi's cheek, and then pushing her toward offstage, leaning heavily on the chair.

"Mark, what are you doing?" Mimi hissed.

"I did something to my ankle," Mark whispered back. "It hurts."

"Oh," was all Mimi could say. If Mark was hurt, she couldn't really say 'suck it up', because that would be mean, and it wouldn't do for her to injure one of her dancers further. Though really, if Mark couldn't dance, that threw everything off. "Okay, um… Could you tough through the end of Dancing, and then sit out classroom scene, and be back in action later?" Mark just nodded, and Angel the Savior took her entrance a little early and simply took her time going to interrupt The World's Worst Non-Canon Couple Ever in the middle of making out.

Boq forgot he was holding Nessa's hand, and Nessa conveniently forgot to remind him.

Angel had the time of her life pretending to make her nice comments mean comments, and then make the mean comments nice comments again so Joanne wouldn't suspect her of being evil. Joanne had the time of her life going through her carefully self-scripted internal monologue of guilt and revelation as to the nature of the human race, and Roger had the time of his life not pressed up against Joanne's face. Finally, Roger said his lines and he and Joanne started dancing again, only to be interrupted by Maureen and the Boho Hat.

"Who in Oz is that?!" Roger exclaimed, and in his interpretation of Fiyero, decided that he had fallen in love with Elphaba then and there just because she was like nothing he had ever seen before. In explaining it to Mark, he had said, '_Y'know, like skin, skin, skin, skin, GREEEEEN, skin; so you'd immediately go look at the green, right?_' Mark had smiled and nodded and filmed something, letting Roger's nonsense go in one ear and express lane out the other.

"Don't you know, it's the girl who has a straw fetish…" Fiyero said, displaying his Aesthetic Manifestation's knowledge of how the show ends.

"It's only a straw fetish because it's you," Elphaba said. "Nobody else could pull it off."

"Well, he's going to try to…" Fiyero pointed to Roger.

"'Try' being the key word there." Maureen was dancing the funny little hat dance, and Joanne was going through another self-scripted internal monologue, with Roger's prompting with little lines about 'your fault' and stuff like that. Finally, Joanne broke from the sidelines and joined her girlfriend.

"May I… cut in?" she asked nervously. Maureen looked at her for a long time, making the lesbian lawyer squirm a little, then took a baby step back for Joanne to do whatever she wanted.

Joanne started slowly, unsure, her every instinct telling her to turn back as guilt drove her on. Maureen watched as her dance was taken and developed further, turned into something elegant and refined. She joined in, and the two were dancing together. And then Benny and Collins joined in, not really dancing with each other yet playing off each other wonderfully. Roger found his place somewhere in the scheme of things, and Mark found a way to push Mimi around with a bad ankle and join in.

"Dancing through life!" Everyone sang enthusiastically. "Down at the OzDust, if only because dust is what we come to!" Glinda was practically in tears seeing the moment she and Elphaba became friends done so beautifully. "And the strange thing, your life could end up changing, while you're dancing…" Everybody did their final spins, Mark sufficing to spin Mimi around in her chair while standing rather than the choreographed running around it and spinning it with him.

"THROUGH!" everyone belted, but it ended too soon, and Glinda was left singing by herself in the audience.

"Throu…" she died out quickly though.

"Glinda, let them sing." Elphaba chided playfully. "It's what they're pretending they're getting paid to do."


	20. Joanne's Popular

**Disclaimer: First of all, big shout-out to my study hall proctor for unlocking the internet blocks and allowing me to post during school hours! WHOO! Second, _amazing _shout-out to the reviewers who haven't lynched me for not updating in so long. Third, shout-out to all the people who won't lynch me... I need to put everything on hiatus. I have the opportunity to bring friends to see Wicked on a legit stage, and my parents won't let me go unless I finish my novel (non-fanfic) by April, and it is now December, and I have about sixty pages to write, maybe more. So yeah, more details on my profile. **(And I have a request for a pretty Pixess, could you see Sweeney Todd movie then tell me if it's okay for people who normally don't enjoy violent movies? Thankies.)

**Please enjoy Joanne Jefferson as Glinda in POPULAR! Story Time! -LostOzian**

* * *

Joanne and Maureen walked toward the front of the stage as everyone else cleared up the mess of ribbons, and Roger and Collins dragged the MMToSL onstage. The Table had two pillows on it, one pink with a fuzzy pillowcase and one an unnatural shade of yellow. (The pink one was stolen from Angel's bed; the yellow one from Roger's.)

"Your first party?!" Joanne exclaimed. Maureen kind of shifted uncomfortably.

"Do funerals count?" Maureen asked. Roger and Collins set down the Table, and ran offstage. Joanne hopped up on the pink pillow side of the Table, kicking her legs excitedly.

"It's your first party!" she started squealing, practically forcing herself to make such a high pitched sound. Maureen stood there, impersonating Joanne's normal self as Joanne impersonated Maureen. Joanne suddenly gasped, reaching out and grabbing Maureen's arm and pulling her down next to her on the table.

"I know, we'll tell each other something we've never told anyone else! I'll go first." Joanne calmed herself down. Elphaba hugged Fiyero again as Joanne continued with her line.

"Fiyero and I are going to be married," she said perfectly calmly, then suddenly exploded in girlish excitement, burying her face in the pink pillow.

"He's asked you already?" Maureen asked, slightly disbelieving that people would get engaged after one date. Joanne collected herself for the one line.

"Oh, no, he doesn't know yet," she said, then returned to squealing into the pillow. Maureen sat there, waiting for her girlfriend to finish. Glinda poked Elphaba gently.

"Elphie?" she said softly. "Was I really that… annoying?" Elphaba smirked.

"Hate to say it, Glinda, but she's not half as annoying as you had been," Elphaba responded. Glinda sat there in shock as Joanne asked about Maureen's secret.

"Now you tell me a secret," the lawyer said, her arm reaching around Maureen's back to the yellow pillow, scrambling around under it. "Like… why do you sleep with this little green bottle under your pillow?" Maureen froze as Joanne produced one of the green bottles.

"Give that back," she said seriously.

"Tell me its secret!" Joanne insisted.

Joanne and Maureen fought a little, Joanne playing keep away, until Maureen finally grabbed the bottle and shouted, "It was my mother's! That's all!" Dead silence followed. Everyone backstage was absolutely soundless, too, wondering how the Ozians would react to the scene. Elphaba just sat very still, letting Fiyero stroke her hair. Glinda was staring at Joanne's Doc Martens thoughtfully, and Nessa made a mental note to comfort her sister later, because she didn't dare move in case Boq realized he was still holding her hand. Boq, who had never had an inkling this moment occurred until now, was watching intently, paying absolute attention for fear he would miss something.

"That's not fair," Joanne said quietly. "I told you a really good one." Any other audience would have laughed, but the Ozians didn't, and the Bohos were completely understanding of that. Maureen just sat there, fingering the bottle, until finally relenting.

"Okay," she said, waving for Joanne to sit next to her. The lawyer bounced over and up onto the table, kicking her legs slightly.

"My father hates me," Maureen said, then cut across Joanne's gasp, saying "That's not the secret. The secret is… he has a good reason to." Maureen looked off into the darkened loft for a moment before continuing. "When Mother was carrying Nessa, our father was so worried the new baby would turn out…" Maureen searched for a politically correct way to describe her condition.

"Green," Joanne supplied. Maureen cringed, yet acknowledged that was the word she was looking for.

"Exactly. So he made her chew milk-flowers day and night. Only… that made Nessa come too soon, her little legs all tangled…" Maureen took a deep breath, suppressing tears. "None of which would have happened if not for me." Joanne sat there sadly, thinking of how different a secret about marriage and a secret about how your father had immense self-control to not drown you as a baby were.

"But that was the milk-flower's fault," Joanne said logically. "Not yours. And though it may be your secret, Elphaba, it doesn't make it true." Joanne sat there a moment, before pointing offstage, imaging a clock that said it was past midnight.

"Look, it's tomorrow," she said innocently. Another moment passed in happy silence before Joanne spoke up again. "Elphie? Do you mind if I call you Elphie?" Maureen blinked in surprise she had just received a nickname.

"Well, it's a little perky," Maureen commented, hoping 'Galinda' would take a hint and just call her 'Elphaba'. Joanne decided not to take the hint, continuing on full steam.

"And you can call me… Galinda!" she did jazz hands, or spirit fingers, depending on where you're from, but she spread out her fingers and wiggled them, which means she did jazz hands. But you can call them spirit fingers. "So, Elphie, now that we're friends, I've decided to make you my new _project!_" Glinda squealed in her seat, stealing one of Elphaba's hands and swinging it back and forth, a manic smile on her face.

"Glinda, I remind you, let _them_ sing," Elphaba enforced, while watching as Maureen's expression changed from reminiscently mournful to one of nauseous dread.

"You… really don't have to… do that," Maureen forced out, trying to make herself smile and failing. Joanne merely giggled again.

"I know," she said. "That's what makes me so nice." Everybody backstage raised a finger to go 'ding' as the music began.

"Whenever I see someone less fortunate than I," Joanne placed her hands over her heart. "And let's face it: who isn't less fortunate than I? My tender heart tends to start to bleed…" Joanne opened her hands, leaning forward.

"And…" Joanne looked at Maureen. "When-someone-needs-a-make-over-I-simply-have-to-take-over, I know, I know," Joanne breathed. "Exactly what they need…"

"She breathes less than you do," Elphaba said to Glinda.

"Not fairrrr…" Glinda said. "Are you just going to mock me the whole time?" Fiyero and Elphaba glanced at each other.

"Yes," they said at the same time.

"Don't worry, I'm determined to succeed!" Joanne pulled Maureen up off the table and brought her to center stage. "And yes, indeed… you… will… be…" Joanne suddenly whipped her hand forward, showing Maureen all she could achieve with a smile and good reputation.

"Popular!" Maureen blinked, wondering if she had heard correctly. "You're gonna be pop-u-u-lar!" The Bohos all covered their mouths as Joanne the Lesbian continued. "I'll teach you the proper ploys when you talk to boys, little ways to flirt and flounce…" Joanne made a high pitched-sound, swinging Maureen around so she sat on the pink side of the table. "I'll show you what shoes to wear, how to fix that hair!" Joanne started undoing the careful braid. "Everything that really counts to be _popular_!" She struck a pose, a kind of attempt to look like a valiant warrior of fashion, campaigning out into the world to make everyone look beautiful. She looked down at Maureen kindly. "I'll help you be pop-u-u-lar! You'll hang with the right cohorts…" Joanne got down from the table, then swung an imaginary baseball bat through the air. "…You'll be good at sports, and know the slang you've _got _to know!" Maureen looked at Joanne pathetically, causing the Lawyer to lose steam for a moment.

"So let's start, cause you've got an awfully long way to go…" Joanne hopped back up on the table, wrapping her arms around Maureen's shoulders.

"Don't be offended by my frank analysis," Joanne placated, though not very helpfully. The look on Maureen's face said that she had a very different experience in mind when Joanne had said 'project'. "Think of it as personality dialysis!" Joanne started rocking Maureen left and right, oblivious to how uncomfortable Maureen was. "Now that I've chosen to become a pal, a sister, and adviser," Joanne stopped, looking at Maureen. "There's nobody wiser! Not when it comes to _popular_!" Joanne gestured at herself. "I know about pop-u-u-lar! And with an assist from me to be who you'll be!" She spun off the table again and twirling. "Instead of dreary, who you were," Joanne stopped. "Well, are, there's nothing that can stop you from becoming pop-u-ler!" Maureen raised an eyebrow. "Lar," Joanne corrected.

Nobody had any complaints about Joanne's popular. She pulled off a peppy blonde better than imagined, all without changing her physical appearance. She did all she could to force Maureen into more misery (for her own good, of course) and took the scene to new levels in doing so. Fiyero and Elphaba never outright teased Glinda again, but whenever Joanne added in some new quirk, it was always accompanied by a pointed look from one of the two, or both. Maureen finally got to the point where she was allowed to say something.

"This is _never_ going to work!" Maureen exclaimed, tugging at her hair nervously. Joanne tittered, spinning in circles again.

"Elphie, you mustn't say that anymore! Your whole life is about to change, and all-" Pose. "-because-" New pose. "-of me!" Final and best pose of all, the arms-raised Thank Goodness pose. For the purposes of foreshadowing. Maureen merely resigned herself to materialistic misery as Joanne snapped for her to pay attention.

"Now," Joanne said. "This is how you toss your hair." She leaned back a little, then looked left, then right very fast so her hair swished. "Toss, toss," she said, then looked to Maureen. "Now you." Maureen gave Joanne one last pleading look, before leaning back and imitating the hair toss. The main difference was Maureen's hair was much longer than Joanne's, and Maureen ended up with a face full of hair. Other than that, the tosses were a lot alike, with Joanne looking silly and Maureen looking stupid.

"That's okay. We'll practice." Joanne said, then started looking around the set. Something was missing. "Um…uh…"

"What?" Maureen said.

"I lost my magic wand!" Joanne said. "Help me look!" Maureen hopped off the table, but was stopped by Joanne. "But you have to _dance_." Maureen froze.

"What?" she said as Joanne started looking around.

"You heard me. Dance." Joanne showed off some dancing, before incorporating it into her search for her magic wand. Maureen started imitating her, working how disturbed she was into 'Elphaba's' reaction. All the while, the Bohos were frantically searching around backstage for where the stupid wand went. Finally, Angel found it, and slid it across the floor in front of Joanne.

"Aha!" Joanne picked up the wand. "Here it is! Now, I will transform your simple frock into a beautiful ball gown!"

"How are they going to pull off magic like that onstage?" Fiyero asked. Elphaba just smirked.

"You'll see," she said, as Joanne shouted out, "Ball gown!"

Nothing happened. Maureen shifted her weight. Joanne forced a smile as Fiyero tried to hide his.

"Okay, that was my first try, it's okay, we're okay…" she made excuses under her breath, before waving the wand around a little more. "Ball gown!" she repeated.

Again, nothing happened.

"That's how they pull off magic 'like that' onstage," Elphaba said, as Joanne delivered the famous like, "Is this thing on?" She tapped the wand on her leg a few times as Maureen reached for it.

"Maybe if I tried-" But Joanne pulled the wand away.

"No-no-no-no-no-no-no!" Joanne said, then tossed the wand over her shoulder. "Oh, just wear the frock, it's pretty."

"Don't laugh!" Glinda hissed, poking Elphaba's shoulder. "I hadn't had a single sorcery lesson yet!"

"Morrible never taught us how to make ball gowns, Glinda," Elphaba said as Joanne sat Maureen down on the MMToSL. Pulling out the flower from her hair, she delivered her line with innocent beauty.

"Now for the finishing touch." She pinned the flower in Maureen's hair and gasped. "Pink goes good with green!"

"Oh yeah, she's green," Fiyero said.

"Duh! She's got green eye shadow all over her face!" Glinda said.

"Glinda, is something... _wrong_ with green?" Elphaba said with the smallest of edges in her voice. Glinda paled.

"No," she squeaked as Joanne gave Maureen a mirror.

"Why, Miss Elphaba," the lawyer was saying. "Look at you. You're beautiful." Maureen stared at her reflection in amazement, not letting her inner thoughts of _Ooh, who's that hottie? Oh yeah! It's _me! show on her face. Instead, she imagined that she was breaking out in pimples.

Everyone backstage crossed their fingers, hoping that Maureen and Joanne wouldn't kiss while at the same time hoping they would.

"I… I have to go," Maureen said, shoving the mirror into Joanne's hands and running away. Everyone let go of their fingers, happy and sad MoJo hadn't kissed.

"You're welcome," Joanne said unhappily, before noticing her reflection in the mirror and, instead of worrying about a pimple forming in her eyebrow, forced her face to think, _Ooh, who's that hottie? Oh yeah! It's _me! Still, she was not to be distracted from her big song.

"And though you protest, your disintere-e-e-est I know clandestinely…" Joanne stamped her foot and continued. "You're gonna grin and bear it, your newfound popularity!" She kicked her foot so she landed on her back on the MMToSL, staring at the mirror.

"La la, la-a-a la, you'll be popular," Joanne sat up, looking offstage at Maureen. "Just not quite as popular… as… ME!" Joanne looked forward, raising her arms as she held the last note, then posed.

The Ozians clapped, knowing that Joanne was indeed popular. Or at least, they liked her, and so did many assorted fangirls.


	21. The Chapter After Joanne's Popular

**Disclaimer: Wicked and RENT are not mine. Dedication to GirlInTheMirror121, who got me to update. I'm not sure if this is a crowning glory chapter, it's got some serious themes in it anyway... One Short Day will definitely be happier. Story Time! -LostOzian**

**_Alternate Title:_ Fiyero, Take Your AZT!**

* * *

Joanne hopped down from the MMToSL, and gathered up all the little props as Collins and Mark dragged the table off stage. Mimi, Benny, and Roger started hanging out onstage, talking about random stuff, and Maureen finally entered, wearing her white jacket that appeared in Over the Moon and desperately trying to learn how to flip her hair. 

"Toss, toss," she repeated, tossing her hair behind her shoulders only to re-arrange it in front of them again. Roger looked over at her, and excused himself from Benny and Mimi. Maureen tossed her hair again, and Roger bit back a laugh. Maureen turned to look at him.

"What?" she asked sharply. "What are you looking at?" Roger held up his hands in surrender.

"Nothing, it's just…" He smiled an 'I'm a rock star, worship me' smile. "You've been Galindafied." Maureen made a face, like an admission of 'yeah, you got me'. Roger looked up again, continuing with his line. "You don't have to do that, you know." Maureen was just about to ask what he meant when Dr. Thomas-Dillamond-Collins the Goat Man entered with the inside-out sheepskin jacket.

"All right, take your seats, class!" he said, and everyone sat down on the floor, Mimi and Benny on one side and Roger and Maureen on the other. "I have something to say, and very little time to say it." He took off his beanie and pressed it against his two hoof-fists.

"This is my last day here at Shiz," Collins said. Mimi and Benny just looked at each other, Roger's jaw dropped, and Maureen… Maureen was livid. "I am no longer permitted to teach. I want to thank you for sharing your enthusiasm… your essays, no matter how feebly structured…" Collins looked at Maureen with a kind of fatherly affection. "And even, on occasion, your lunch." Angel entered with the mutilated Pussy Galore wig, concern gushing off of her.

"Doctor Dillamond, I'm so dreadfully sorry," she said, patting Collins' back.

"Oz, I actually believe she's sorry!" Elphaba complained.

"Madame, we've got to do something!" Maureen stood up suddenly. Everyone looked at her strangely, but Collins walked up to her, placing his hoof-fists on her shoulders.

"Miss Elphaba, they can take away my job, but I shall continue speaking out." Collins gave her a decisive nod, and the Drama Queen looked hopeful, until Mark entered wearing a pair of Benny's yuppie scum sunglasses _on top of_ his usual glasses, so he had two pairs of glasses dangling off of his abnormally pale ears.

"Get a move on, y'old goat," he said in a nasally used-car-salesman voice.

"Wait, isn't he Boq?" Glinda asked, pointing to Mark.

"No, he's not wearing the scarf-tie," Elphaba said. "Remember the swing parts."

"Oh." Collins was yelling about not seeing the whole story, and Mark finally forced him off stage.

"Doctor Dillamond!" Maureen cried. Mark went to the other side, silently picking up a box with a cloth on the top. She turned to her classmates, angrily clenching and unclenching her hands. "Well, are we just going to sit here? In _silence_?" Benny and Mimi shared another look, and Roger started fiddling with a shoelace. Angel patted Maureen's shoulder, looking a lot like she had when she was comforting Collins.

"Miss Elphaba, there's nothing we can do," she said. "Please take your seat." With a sniffle, Maureen sat down next to Roger again. Mark set up his evil operation of cardboard box, cloth, and lethal-looking scissors.

"Gooood afternoon, students!" he said, beginning his solicitation. "Every day, with every tick of the Time Dragon Clock, in every corner of our great Oz, one hears the silence of progress. For example," Mark lifted the cloth off the top, but nobody could see inside. All the students stood up to get a better look, including Maureen and Roger. "This is called a cage!" There were several gasps as everyone looked at the 'cage'.

"They're not going to show us the cage?" Fiyero asked.

"The Cub probably doesn't move," Elphaba said.

"This remarkable innovation is actually for the Animal's own good..." Mark was saying.

"If it's for his own good, why is he trembling?" Maureen demanded. Mark looked down at the cage-prop for a moment, coming up with a plausible excuse.

"Well, he's just excited to be here, that's all," Mark said. He snapped the lethal-looking scissors around in the box with loud _clicks_. With each click, everyone onstage but Mark winced. "Now, as I was saying, one of the benefits-" _click_ "-of caging a Lion cub-" _click_ "-so young-" _click_ "is that it will never, in fact," Mark hid the scissors behind his back as if they had never been there. "Learn how to speak!"

"What?" Maureen squeaked, horrified. Fiyero bit his lip.

"You just squeaked," he whispered to Elphaba, who poked him. Mark motioned the students closer, but Maureen kept backing up away from the cage. Roger looked from her to Mark a few times, before approaching Maureen. She grabbed onto his arm.

"Can you imagine a world where Animals are kept in cages?!" she said, not noticing how bewildered Roger was. "And they never _speak_?!"

"Now, he may _seem_ a bit agitated…" Mark took out the scissors again, snipping them in the air. "…but that's easily remedied…" Maureen put her hands over her mouth in horror.

"What should I do?!" she cried. Roger was looking at her helplessly.

"I- I don't know," he said.

"Well, somebody has to…" Maureen looked around for someone who would help, before realizing she _was the only one with the ability to change things!!!_ "Do something!"

She raised her arms, and Mark, Mimi, and Benny were 'blasted' back from the cage, and started to imitate heavy metal dancing, with lots of arm flailing and crazy spastic spinning.

"Freak-ay," Glinda said. "I'm kind of glad I wasn't in class that day."

"What's happening?!" Roger asked Maureen.

"I don't know, I got mad, and…" she threw up her arms to indicate 'then things got freak-ay'. Roger looked up at the two other students and Mark the Twisted Propaganda-Packed Professor, attempting to formulate **A Plan**.

"Alright, just don't move…" Benny, Mark, and Mimi all gave a particularly violent spasm. "And don't get mad at me," he added as an afterthought. Not knowing what else to do, he picked up the Lion Cub's 'cage' and headed toward offstage until he realized Maureen was still standing onstage. "Well, are you coming?" Maureen suddenly ran off after him, leaving Mark, Mimi, and Benny to dance around on stage a little, before finally clearing stage.

What followed would forever be remembered as the sweetest Fiyeraba scene in history. Roger and Maureen, being insanely attractive people to begin with, while also possessing a fair amount of skill at acting, gave the scene a tragic sense of propriety preventing them from making out then and there. The Ozians watched in silence, Fiyero and Elphaba rather pleased, Glinda choosing to focus on how those were actors onstage, not her friends, and Boq finally realized Nessa was still holding his hand when Maureen touched Roger's.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked Nessa.

"If you forgot about it, obviously it wasn't that terrible," she said. Boq just folded his arms and watched Maureen and Roger kneeling by the Lion cub cage.

"What did you mean to do?" Roger asked. "And why was I the only one you didn't do it to?" Maureen looked up, suddenly realizing that it was rather strange that she had spared him without intending to. Instead of answering his question, she pointed to his upstage cheek, because there had been no time to put fake blood on him.

"Oh, look! You're bleeding… It must have scratched you…" she said.

"Yeah… Or maybe it scratched me… or something," Roger said pathetically. Maureen reached out to wipe away the blood, and had only just touched his face when a rather annoying beeping started. Roger and Maureen froze with 'oh, shit' looks frozen on their faces. Maureen retracted her hand, using it to cover her face as she attempted to not burst out laughing again as Roger pulled out his beeper and shut it off. There were a few snickers backstage, and Mark finally shouted out, "Fiyero, take your AZT!" Fiyero himself looked very confused, wondering why people wanted him to 'take AZT'. Elphaba, in her infinite pool of knowledge, understood immediately.

"The actor takes medication," she told Fiyero. "And they're kind of trying not to break character completely." The Green Witch was exactly right, but it was becoming increasingly hard the longer Roger and Maureen remained onstage. Roger stood up and stretched, sliding his beeper back into his back pocket.

"Well, Elphie, it's been fun, but Auntie Boq is getting on my ass to take my AZT, and he's probably going to chop off my straw-filled head with an ax if I don't go, so I'll just take the Cub and…" _Runoffstageasfastashumanlypossible_. Maureen was now alone onstage as Roger joined the backstage Pill Swallowing Party with Mimi, Angel, and Collins, and a big Tylenol bottle re-labeled 'AZT'. Mo pulled herself together quickly, standing and looking after Roger.

"Fiyero?" she called quietly, before turning to herself. "I didn't even know he _took _AZT…" 'I'm Not That Girl' began, Maureen doggedly repeating the words in her head so she wouldn't think about the fact that Roger had brought his beeper on stage, and not only that, it had gone off. She just sang sorrowfully, taking one moment in the middle of the song to lie flat on the stage as Joanne and Roger went past, with Roger looking distant and moodified. There was a tad bit of eyebrow-raising on the 'gold hair with a gentle curl' line, but it was left in because that's how the song goes, so suck it up.

When suddenly, Madame Angel came onstage with Joanne's bubble-umbrella, or the BubbleBrella, to break up the adolescent angst and save the day!

"Hey, who gave Morrible my bubble?!" Glinda bounced in her chair in protest.

"It's okay, they probably just didn't want another prop to keep track of," Nessa said.

"Oh, Miss Elphaba, I finally heard back from the Wizard!" Angel said, taking Maureen's hands.

"The Wizard?" Maureen said, as if there could be any other Wizard.

"…is a bastard," Elphaba 'finished' Maureen's sentence.

"Yes, he wishes to meet you!" Angel started smoothing out Maureen's hair, which would have been really creepy if the real Morrible had done it, but do I have to go over the fact this is _Angel_ one more time? "I know how devastated you were for our poor Doctor Dillamond, but I can assure you dear, as one door closes, another opens." Maureen stood there looking confused for a moment before Angel whipped out a piece of green construction paper.

"Kapow!" she said, giving the prized invitation to Maureen, who proceeded to glomp her headmistress in excitement.

"Oh, Madame, how can I thank you?!" Angel laughed a little, before straightening the BubbleBrella a little.

"Careful, dearie," she said, letting Maureen hold onto the handle. "Mustn't get wet. I know…" Angel stepped out from under the BubbleBrella, and waved her hands in the air. Maureen looked out from the BubbleBrella, and folded it because supposedly it wasn't raining anymore, giving Angel a look like she was surprised.

"Didn't I tell you?" Angel asked. "Weather is my specialty. Now, Oz-speed, my dear! And make me proud!" Maureen gave back the umbrella as Angel exited.

"I will!" she assured the Nicest Boho In Town, before looking down at the 'invitation' again, and adding, "I'll try." A miniscule reprise of 'The Wizard and I' started.

"And there we'll finally be, the Wizard and I…" Maureen sang.

"Well, at least not much else can go wrong," Boq said.

"Don't say that, it'll jinx them!" Nessa hissed.

"Too late, he said it," Fiyero said.


	22. Mo, Pinata Impersonator Extraordinaire

**Disclaimer: Okay, I leave to ski with a 60 percent chance that there will be no internet, so I update. This-will-probably-mean-lack-of-review-replies-too. By popular vote of those who bothered to favorite and respond to the PM/email notification I sent, it has been decided that since I've lost a lot of steam in the chapters about Musical numbers, I'll give you a few choice numbers based on what you told me you wanted. It also eliminates the fact I'd be spoiling it for a lot of people. Go see the show. Don't let me spoil it. Really. It's fantastic.**

**Bottom line, this is Defying Gravity. And before you call me slacker for rushing through the numbers, I tell you this. I have the final chapter completely written, along with seven pages worth of scenes from chapters after the dress rehearsal is done. This is keeping me from frequent updates. I have chapters written, but they'd be out of order with the plot. What's an authoress to do? Get a life. Fortunately, I have one, and it's you guys. Mwaa. **

**...Story time. -LostOzian**

* * *

Maureen continued to stand onstage in a cloud of joyful hope as Joanne came onstage carrying several bags from earlier in 'Dear Old Shiz' and spouting random stuff about what to do to make Wizards like you. Maureen didn't really pay attention, and Mark and Mimi entered as Boq and Nessa, and they said a few random lines and they both got some really angsty lines worthy of Roger. Speak of the devil, Roger entered a few lines later, gave Maureen paper flowers that Mimi and Angel had had a ball making, and Joanne changed her name to Glinda. Roger ran away, and Maureen decided that Jo-linda should go to the Emerald City with her.

"Ooh, Emerald City!" Glinda started bouncing up and down in her seat, making Elphaba pinch her so she would shut up.

One Short Day was hard to pull off in the sense that they had to create the effect of a city, so what ended up happening was Joanne and Maureen stood in center while Mimi, Angel, Mark, and Collins circled around them, with Benny and Roger throwing new props onstage and catching old ones being thrown off. A hat, a book, the BubbleBrella, a stuffed Akita, and Maureen's paddleball were all included. Then the circle stopped, and Wizomania started, which was cool because it was Collins and, more importantly, Roger, dancing and turning cartwheels. It's not often Roger Davis turns cartwheels.

Mark informed Maureen and Joanne that the Wizard would see them now, and everyone spun around a few more times before a bed sheet was drawn aside to show a big paper mache head. Benny was hiding behind it with a vocorder, and had to say his big, scary line rather slowly so it could be understood. Maureen and Glinda were excellent at being fake-frightened, and Maureen shouted back at the head and Benny popped out. Benny tried to act older, but it was completely obvious that he and Maureen were too close in age for their own good. However, everyone ignored it. Angel got to carry the Grimmerie, aka Collin's old philosophy textbook, Mimi got to be a monkey and pretend some shawls hanging off her shoulders were wings, Maureen got to chant funny words, Joanne got to stand around onstage, and Benny got to pretend to be an asshole rather than actually be one. The other monkeys were Roger, Mark, and Collins, who danced around a little behind the head before exiting. Maureen got really hissy, picked up their 'Grimmerie' and ran offstage, followed by Joanne.

Benny hid behind the big head again, calling for his guards, who happened to be Mark and Roger. After shouting for them to find Maureen, they all went offstage and Mimi and Collins shoved various Props of Great Importance onstage while Maureen and Joanne entered again.

"Oh no… there's no more stairs!" Maureen was running around in a panic, with an equally distressed Joanne trailing after her. "This must be an attic!"

"Random much?" Boq said to Elphaba.

"You try speaking coherently when your childhood idol turns out to be fake," Elphaba said. Maureen picked up the decrepit broom and put it offstage, apparently blocking the door.

"Elphaba! Why couldn't you have stayed calm for once, instead of… flying off the handle!" Joanne played an excellent angry!Glinda, losing her cool while still having Maureen control the dominant half of the conversation when she started singing.

"So though I can't imagine how… I hope you're happy! Right! Now!" Maureen and Joanne turned away from each other to sulk angrily as Angel crossed to center stage.

"Citizens of Oz!" she called out. "There is an enemy among us who must be found and captured. Believe nothing she says… she's evil… responsible for the mutilation of these poor, innocent monkeys!"

Everyone poked Elphaba, who became very annoyed.

"Her green skin is an outward manifestorium of her twisted nature! This disgusting… This repulsive… This…" Angel set her face in an expression of grim determination. "_**Wicked Witch!**_" Stunned silence.

"Scary Morrible," Glinda whispered. The silence continued.

"Don't be afraid," Joanne told Maureen as she clutched the Diva's arm.

"I'm not…" Maureen said, growing stronger as she stood. "It's the Wizard who should be afraid. Of _me_." Joanne tugged on Maureen's sleeve.

"Elphie… Listen to me!" she begged. "Just… say you're sorry! Before it's too late! You can still be with the Wizard… what you've worked and waited for…" Maureen closed her eyes, trying to ignore Joanne. "You can have all you ever wanted…"

"I know," Maureen said. "But I don't want it- no," Maureen paused. "I can't want it an-y-more…" Everyone had a moment to ponder the selfless nobility of the line before Maureen started singing again.

"Something has changed within me," she sang slowly. "Something is not the same… I'm through with playing by the rules of someone else's game!" Joanne was again caught standing around onstage while action swirled around her. Really, the only thing she had to do was look worried and catch hold of Maureen and sing, "Can't I make you understand? You're having delusions of grandeur!"

"Elphie," Glinda leaned close to her friend. "She sounds exactly like you."

"No she doesn't," Elphaba said. "She doesn't match the accent."

"I think she does," Glinda nodded. "Sing with her for the next lines."

"For too long I've been afraid of losing love I guess I've lost…" Maureen belted to the rafters. And out the broken skylight. Pigeons landed to listen.

"Elphie! You didn't sing!"

"It's their show! And we do not sound alike!"

"Yes you do! I promise! Sing with her!"

Unfortunately for Glinda, there wasn't much singing next. Maureen pulled out Collins' textbook and put it on the floor, flipping through pages as Roger stamped on the floor and shouted, "Open the door! In the name of his Supreme Ozness!" Maureen started chanting, and Joanne started flipping out. Finally, after a lot of chanting and screeching, Joanne screamed, "STOP!" And Maureen stopped. And there was a long silence.

"Well?" Joanne asked once she caught her breath. "Where are your wings?" Maureen's face fell when she discovered that she was, in fact, wingless. "Maybe you're not as powerful as you think you are."

WHEN SUDDENLY Collins tossed the broom onstage as if it had flown, and Maureen caught it and started smiling.

"I told you, Glinda! Didn't I tell you?" Maureen said happily, standing up and striking a 'let's go flying' pose. "Quick! Get on!"

"What?!" Joanne jumped back. Maureen turned to her pleadingly.

"Elphie," Glinda asked. "Please, just sing along for the next three lines. That's all I'll need." Elphaba rolled her eyes.

"Unlimited…" Maureen sang and Elphaba kind of barely more than hummed. "Together we're unlimited, together we'll be the greatest team there's ever been…"

"You two have the same voice. I'm not kidding." Glinda said, reaching across to poke Fiyero. "Fiyero, the actress sounds exactly like Elphie."

"Oh, don't drag him into this," Elphaba muttered.

"Really?" Fiyero said. "Show me."

"_No_."

Joanne, in a fit of friendshipness, found the other Prop of Great Importance (a black bedsheet) and tied it around Maureen's neck, wishing she would be happy. Very high-emotion part of the Defying Gravity scene, and the three decided that it was too precious a moment to break with bickering about whether Elphaba and Maureen were twins.

Either way, Roger and Mark managed to 'break down the door', ruining the moment anyway. Maureen ran away, leaving Joanne to stand and fight grown men with swords with a teeny purse.

Now would be an excellent time to point out that Defying Gravity was an extremely uncomfortable experience for a certain Maureen Johnson. Joanne was given extra 'struggle' choreography, all the while Collins tried to tie a rope around her waist. Once that was done, Maureen started her line, "It's not her!" while Collins reached up her shirt to find her bra. He threaded the rope through so that the undergarment held the rope against Maureen's back. Part of the reason Collins was assigned the role of Rope Tier was that he was gay and there would be nothing sexual about reaching up her shirt, but clearly nobody spared a thought to how hard it is to deliver death-threat-esque lines when someone's tickling your back. Collins then fed the rope through the top of her shirt and threw it up so that it looped around one of the pipes in the ceiling. Collins would then poke Maureen who would switch the broom into her other hand, a cue that she was about to start flying, as Angel, Benny, Mimi, and Collins started to pull her into the air.

"It's meeeeeeeeeeee!" Maureen started singing, before being pulled slowly, and rather uncomfortably, into the air.

Glinda poked Elphaba again. "_Sing!_" she hissed.

"Fine, if you promise to not bug me about this again!"

"...Look to the western sky!" Maureen happily belted, with Elphaba doing a barely audible accompaniment. "As someone told me lately, everyone deserves the chance to fly, and if I'm flying solo, at least I'm flying free!" Elphaba folded her arms and stopped singing, having completely convinced her friends that she and Maureen were long lost twins, just in time to notice a certain Maureen Johnson begin to turn. Ever so slightly, the drama queen began to spin to her right. By the time she came to "Tell them how I am defying gravity", she turned a full ninety degrees to her right, or stage left. But there was nothing for her to do but just keep singing and look somewhat threatening until the rope turned around again.

"And nobody," Maureen shifted, trying to at least make herself spin faster. "In all of Oz, no Wizard that there is or was…" Nessa suddenly leaned across both Boq and Glinda, grabbing her sister's ear. Elphaba wondered why everyone was bugging _her_, and why _now._

"She's a piñata!" Nessa said.

"Dear Oz," Elphaba mumbled, sitting up again.

"Meeeeeeeeeeee down!" Maureen sang, finally facing forward. She had been tied off, and now Angel, Benny, Mimi, and Collins joined Mark, Roger, and Joanne onstage, playing Frightened Ozians. Joanne hoped that Maureen was happy, and everyone else called her wicked, and swore to bring her down but didn't really say how, so nothing happened.

There was a big button, Maureen was facing dead center, and posed with her broom, everyone pointed, and everyone broke out into applause. Someone killed the lights so that there would be the Air of Mystery, but really all they did was they put Roger's mattress under Maureen (because all the soft and squishy props came from Roger's room) and then untied the rope, lowering her down.

* * *

Concessions at intermission consisted of two bottles of beer and a packet of M&Ms, but Elphaba didn't eat the green ones. Fiyero did. With great relish. And to Elphaba's delighted disgust.

* * *

**Ask me to rant about The Drowsy Chaperone. If you have time. -LostOzian**


End file.
